Inter-cluster research project
The project aims to understand the landscape of domestic and marginalized cultures of the long 19th century through the ephemeral scores and literary sources belonging to female periodicals. The focus lies mainly on French publications from Paris and Brussels, but the project is growing to include material from other countries.
The archival research has led to the creation, in 2026, of the Trésor des Demoiselles knowledge base—a modern and interactive dataset unleashing the interwoven cultural network behind the heterogeneous collection of literary works, sheet music, chamber-size theatrical works, recipes, and handicraft instructions.
From an artistic research perspective, Arabella Pare examines the physical absence and fragmentary nature of the source material, such as the cut-out sheet music and missing instructions, in the context of the marginalized and forgotten practices of 19th-century domesticity. Rather than viewing these gaps as simple losses, her approach treats these fractures as meaningful traces of lived experience. By engaging with what has been cut away and the transdisciplinary relationships with the remaining material, her research seeks to re-enact and understand the interconnected domestic, aesthetic, and performative practices of 19th-century women.
