We could,  writes  Trinh Thi Minh-ha,  try to  see the blank spaces  in the archive  not  just as  evidence of  repression  but also  as  a source for a different imagination  in service of “a profound determination not to forget”.  Trinh proposes a reparative exercise  which centers archival gaps:  “Whether materially or immaterially manifested  the blank space remains alive with indefinite possibilities.” 
   I will present a  case study of  disappearance in the archive:  Since the  late  1960s,  about 2,300 South Korean children have been placed for adoption in West Germany, out of a total of 200,000 worldwide.  Part of this history of  Third and First World relations,  systemic neglect and imperial humanitarianism  are  inbuilt  blank spaces  in  the paperwork regarding the identities of the (Korean) parents.  On the basis of  archival research,  I  am  looking for ways to  write about this history  without  filling  in the gaps or  leaving  them to oblivion,  but  instead approaching  their “indefinite possibilities”.  In working with archival fragments,  I take note from the many academic and literary writers and artists  for  whom  the problem of the gaps  has  led to a different aesthetic in their own work.  What happens when we  rethink  archival research from its affective impact, “from the perspective of the fever, the acts of those whom it infects”  (Ariella  Azoulay),  when we take  narrative impasses  (Saidiya  Hartman)  and  the  intention to “write until they were real” (Bhanu Kapil)  seriously?  When the goal is not to uncover  hidden  injustices,  forms of  revenge, protection  and  resuscitation  emerge.

Anja Sunhyun MICHAELSEN is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC Consolidator Grant Project “Tales of the Diasporic Ordinary. Aesthetics, Affects, Archives” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her  research  focuses on migrant and diasporic  writing and art,  queer and  postcolonial archives, and reparative practices  after Eve Sedgwick.  She is currently  working on  an archive-based  manuscript about the placements of South Korean children with West German families from the 1960s to  the  1980s.