Sinje Dillenkofer's body of work Archives Vivantes inquires into the idea of the archive, using the means of visual art to let us see what the archive does not reveal. Her staged photographs turn the spotlight on specimens, artifacts, graphic art and writings compiled by the explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the ornithologist Carlo von Erlanger, finding visual analogies, pictorial spaces and spatial compositions in the peculiar features of the collections. Animals and plants that died long ago in the service of science are vividly embodied through the use of light and shadow. The pictures were taken in six German collection archives.