Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific

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Film World Meets Memory of the World

An Asia Pacific Cinema Documentary Heritage Conference took place in Manilla from 26-28 October. MOWCAP and the Asia Culture Center  are very pleased to have supported (along with many others) this important initiative through our 2018 small grants program.

Moving images are how the memory of the world of the 20th and 21st centuries has been and is being captured, preserved and transmitted. Photojournalists’ recording of historic events as they take place and filmmakers’ efforts to document, investigate and look below the surface or to convey literary works or fantasy — in all these ways film represents the quintessential modern means of communication.

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UNESCO News Release on Inter-regional Conference

A news release on the major inter-regional conference on memory preservation and accessibility organized by UNESCO has been posted on the UNESCO website. The conference was held in Panama City on 25-26 October 2018.

The news release can be accessed in English, Spanish (no link) and French.

See the photo gallery of the delegates participating in this important event.

MOWCAP Contributes to First UNESCO MoW Inter-regional Meeting

MOWCAP was well represented at the first UNESCO Memory of the World Inter-regional Conference on Preservation and Accessibility of Documentary Heritage. The conference was held in Panama City from 25-26 October 2018. One of the objectives was to foster co-operation among the members of the MoW community. This objective and others were all achieved in the dynamic two days of sharing MoW experiences. The conference programme can be found here.

The opening remarks were made by Lidia Brito, Regional Director, UNESCO Montevideo; Luis Oporto, Chairperson of MOWLAC and H. E. Mr Flavio Mendez, Ambassador, Permanent Delegate of Panama to UNESCO. This was followed by two days of sharing Memory of the World experiences and challenges from around the world.

The following is a brief report on the contribution made by the MOWCAP representatives. It also includes an update on the international Memory of the World Review.

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Celebration of the Inscription of the National Debt Redemption Movement Archives

The Spirit of the National Debt Redemption Movement Spreads across the Globe

This was the title of an international conference organized by the Commemorative Association of the National Debt Redemption Movement to celebrate the first anniversary of the inclusion of the Archives of the Korean Debt Redemption Movement in UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register. The conference was held in the Grand Hotel in Daegu on 2 October 2018, with over 200 attentive listeners.

The opening speech was given by Mrs Dong-Hak Shin, President of the Association, followed by welcoming and congratulatory speeches on behalf of Mr Young-Jin Kwon, Mayor of Daegu, by Mrs Ji-Sook Bae, Chairperson of the Daegu Metropolitan Council and by Mrs Eun-Hee Kang, Superintendent at the Daegu Metropolitan office.

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Petitions Inscribed on International Memory of the World Registers

An International Symposium on Petition Movements in the Nineteenth Century was held on 13 September 2018 at the Advanced Center for Korean Studies in Andong, Republic of Korea.

There are two inscriptions on petition movements on international registers. The New Zealand Women’s Suffrage Petition was inscribed on the Memory of the World International Register in 1998. The Maninso: Ten Thousand People’s Petitions was inscribed on the MOWCAP register in 2018.

The Women’s Suffrage Petition requested the New Zealand Parliament to extend the franchise to women aged 21 years and over. It consists of 546 sheets of paper, glued together to form one continuous roll, 274 metres long. It was presented to the New Zealand Parliament with great drama. John Hall, a Member of Parliament and suffrage supporter, brought it into the House and unrolled it down the central aisle of the debating chamber until it hit the end wall with a thud. The number of women who signed was close to one quarter of the female adult population.

On 19 September 1893, 125 years ago,  New Zealand was the first country in the world to pass legislation to give women the same voting rights as men.  The Women’s Suffrage petition made a major contribution to this achievement.

The Maninso: Ten Thousand People’s Petitions consist of two massive paper scrolls, each measuring some 100 metres in length. The petition for the Posthumous Enthronement of Crown Price Sado, dated 1855, was signed by 10,094 like-minded individuals and presented to the King. The Ten Thousand People’s Petitions against dress reform, dated 1884, was signed by 8,849 people and was not presented to the King. The petitions represent collective actions taken to influence reforms in important state affairs to achieve the ethical politics prescribed by Confucian ideology.

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International Conference on Safeguarding and Increasing Access to the Documentary Heritage of the Silk Routes

The International Conference on Safeguarding and Increasing Access to the Documentary Heritage of the Silk Routes has been held in Fuzhou, China, from the 6-8 November 2018. The meeting was organised by the National Archives of China, in cooperation with the East Asian Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (EASTICA), and hosted by the Fujian Provincial Archives.

The meeting brought together delegates from China, SAR Hong Kong, SAR Macau, Japan, Korea and Mongolia to share information the different documentary heritage relating to the Silk Road and Spice Routes held in their collections, and then discussing cooperation strategies for safeguarding and increasing access to them.

A number of MOWCAP Bureau members and Special Advisors were invited to participate and speak at the seminar, including: Misako Ito, who gave an overview of UNESCO’s Silk Road initiatives; Ray Edmondson, who shared an update on the current state of the MoW program; and Andrew Henderson, who outlined how MOWCAP acts to support regional cooperation for documentary heritage preservation/access.

An exhibition on Documentary Heritage Along the Silk Road was also held in conjunction with the seminar at the Fujian Provincial Archives. The exhibition featured documents from the National Archives of Chine, some of which had never been exhibited before.

The program from the seminar can be found here.

Announcements of Grants for Documentary Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region

The UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Asia Pacific (MOWCAP) is pleased to announce the results of the 2018 round of the MOWCAP-Asia Culture Centre (ACC) Grants Program.

The Program will support eight organizations from the Asia Pacific region to undertake projects to safeguard and make their documentary heritage collections accessible (details of the projects supported can be found below).

Grants were awarded to organizations from Timor-Leste, the Philippines, Tuvalu, Fiji, Myanmar, Vietnam, Iran and Malaysia. Applications were received from over 20 Asia-Pacific organizations.

The generous financial support of the Asia Culture Centre (ACC), and operational support of the Asia Culture Institute (ACI), has made these grants possible.

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Tuol Sleng Records Being Digistised

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Archive was inscribed on the Asia Pacific Memory of the World Register in 2008 and on the International Memory of the World Register in 2009.

A digitisation project is now underway with the objective of  preserving  about 400,000 records from Pol Pot’s brutal regime. The digitisation of about 400,000 pages of documents will be complete in two years. A  database and website for families of the victims and researchers will also be created.

The project is supported by the Korea International Cooperation Agency  through UNESCO and will finish at the end of 2019.

On 28 September the Khmer Times  published an update of the project.

Audiovisual Archiving, Philosophy and Principles

The publication “Audiovisual Archiving, Philosophy and  Principles”  is now available in five languages: Chinese    English  Japanese  Portuguese and  Spanish.

The English text was written by Dr Ray Edmondson and released as a third edition in 2016.

The book was published under UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, and provides the rationale and theoretical basis of audiovisual archiving. It has been updated to reflect the contemporary realities faced by practitioners in the field.

Celebrating Twenty Years of MOWCAP Inscriptions

The Memory of the World: Documentary Heritage on the Asia-Pacific Register is a detailed guide to the 46 items of documentary heritage listed on the Asia Pacific regional register of the Memory of the World up until 2016.

The regional register for Memory of the World was established in 2008. Between 2008 and 2016,  46 items of documentary heritage from 23 countries were inscribed onto the register. The register contains a rich variety of documentary heritage, reflecting the immense cultural, linguistic, economic and political diversity of the Asia-Pacific region.

The publication was made possible through the support of UNESCO Bangkok, the City of Andong, and technical support from the Korean Studies Institute and Korean National Commission for UNESCO, as well as a number of MoW experts.

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