The Principio Potosí Archive is a collection of historical and contemporary sources, interviews, essays, poems, manifestos and images.

It is intended as a complement and continuation of the exhibition project Principio Potosí, which was shown in 2010 at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and in 2011 at the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz.

The term Potosí Principle refers to the persistence of the extractivist logic that began with the conquest of South America until now.

The exhibition discussed this through the colonial baroque images and their response by contemporary artists. It became a milestone in the postcolonial questioning of the origin of modernity and the function of art in it.

The archive continues this theme. It consists of 36 booklets grouped into four volumes. Its themes are: Extractivism, Labour, Debt, Inquisition, Machine Capitalism, Decolonization Practices, and Artistic Doing.

Published on occasion of the project ‘Principio Potosí Archive’, curated by artists’ Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann, which toured to the following venues:

27 May – 11 Jul 2021, Haus de Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

16 Jan – 13 Feb 2022, Kunstraum der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg.

8 Apr – 17 Jul 2022, Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne

This publication consists of 4 volumes in a slipcase.