A UNESCO Memory of the World Training Workshop for the Africa Region was held in Windhoek, Namibia from 16-18 October. The workshop was organized by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea, and the Namibia National Commission for UNESCO.
The objective of the workshop was to increase awareness of the significance of documentary heritage in the Africa region and to assist countries to prepare their applications for nomination to UNESCO registers.
An International Seminar on Human Rights Archives: Agents of Accountability and Justice was held in Gwangju City, Republic of Korea, in September 2017. The international seminar was jointly organised by Gwangju City, the Asia Culture Center, and the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, in cooperation with MOWCAP and the Asia Culture Institute.
The purpose of the seminar was to acknowledge human rights archives as powerful agents for achieving justice, by supporting reconciliation and recovery in societies. The seminar was also an opportunity to enhance cooperation and networking among human rights archivists, associations, and human rights defenders in participating countries.
The organisers were the “Save Myanmar Film Project”, a voluntary group associated with the Wathann Film Institute, a local non-government organisation, in collaboration with the Myanmar Ministry of Information and Culture. The Ministry maintains the country’s most important film archive collection, and the venue for the workshop was the Ministry’s head quarters building. The 15 participants came from various backgrounds and included some staff of the Ministry.
The workshop was led by Mick Newham and Ray Edmondson, both of whom have long international careers in audiovisual archiving, are former senior staff of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, and former presidents of the regional professional federation SEAPAVAA (South East Asia Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association). In preparation for the workshop, the MoW publication, Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles (2016 edition) was translated into Burmese and distributed to all participants.
The group of participants was divided into two: on the first day, Group 1 spent the day with Ray discussing basic archiving concepts and principles, the practicalities of identification, collection management, preservation and access, and disaster preparedness. Group 2 learned about the physical and chemical attributes of film, and had hands-on practice with film winding and splicing. On the second day, the two groups changed places.
The workshop was intended to encourage the growing interest in film preservation among film makers, researchers and archivists, and to help develop a more comprehensive approach to the assembling and protection of the nation’s film heritage. Some follow-up actions were agreed on to help ensure that the experience of the workshop is built upon as the Save Myanmar Film Project and the work of the Ministry develops.
The training was made possible by the generous financial support of the Asia Culture Center through the ongoing partnership with MOWCAP.
A second Knowledge Centre was opened on 11 July 2017. It is based in Beijing at the School of Information Resource Management, Renmin University. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Dean Zhang Bin; Professor Nuo Jin, Chairperson of the University Council; Li Minghua, Director General of the State Archives Adminstration of China, chair of MOWCAP and chair of the China MoW Committee; Professor Lothar Jordan chair of SCEaR; Papa Momar Diop, Memory of the World International Advisory Committee; and Zheng Suiquan,Vice- Chairperson of the University Council.
Mr Li Minghua welcomed everyone to the opening. He spoke about the value of the Memory of the World Programme and noted that China had 10 items inscribed on the Memory of the World Asia and Pacific register. Professor Nuo Jin spoke about the importance of the Knowledge Centre to Renmin University and the importance of the work done by UNESCO to encourage institutions and citizens to preserve national memories.
UNESCO and the Asian Film Archive Workshop June 17
From the 7-8 June 2017 UNESCO and the Asian Film Archive cooperated to hold a two-day workshop that explored how UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme (Memory of the World Asia Pacific “MOWCAP”) can help protect and preserve Southeast Asia’s precious audiovisual heritage. Twelve participants from ten Southeast Asian countries attended the workshop which aimed at helping in the identification of potential audiovisual heritage for nomination and assistance in the inscription process. The workshop was generously supported by the National Library Board, Singapore.
A five-point UNESCO-ASEAN Member States Action Plan emerged from the ASEAN-UNESCO+3 Consultation on the UNESCO Recommendation on Documentary Heritage (09-11 May 2017, Kuala Lumpur).
The Action Plan identifies concrete actions that can be taken in the areas of documentary heritage identification, preservation and access, as well as policy measures to support efforts in these areas and opportunities for international cooperation. The Action Plan was adopted by delegates from 10 ASEAN Member States and Timor-Leste.
Action Plan: http://bit.ly/2rlekp1
ASEAN Member States, museums, archives and libraries will use the Action Plan to guide the implementation of UNESCO’s Recommendation at the national level. The Action Plan will also help the ASEAN Secretariat, UNESCO, and the Memory of the World Committee for the Asia Pacific develop policies, trainings and projects to address challenges identified by member states. [Read more…]
Myanmar’s documentary heritage is rich and diverse, ranging from ancient texts carved in stone and palm leaf manuscripts to cinema and audio-visual materials. As a developing nation, however, Myanmar faces major challenges in safeguarding this heritage and making it accessible to all.
UNESCO working closely with the Myanmar National Commission for UNESCO, held a national level Memory of the World (MoW) training workshop from 4-5 May 2017.
The workshop focused on increasing participants’ knowledge of and skills related to the MoW programme, particularly developing nominations to MoW registers and how the programme can bolster efforts to safeguard Myanmar’s documentary heritage through the establishment of a Memory of the World National Committee.
The preservation of documentary heritage in Timor Leste has received a boost with the official launch of the National Committee of Timor Leste for Memory of the World (MOW) in early December 2016. The launch event was supported by UNESCO through the Malaysia-UNESCO Cooperation Programme (MUCP) in cooperation with the Timor Leste National Commission for UNESCO and the State Secretariat for Art and Culture of Timor Leste and included a two-day capacity building workshop with local stakeholders on 1 and 2 December.
More news on this development is available here.
A project to Safeguard the Documentary Heritage of Myanmar through the UNESCO Memory of the World (MOW) Programme has begun.
The project will be completed with Myanmar during 2017 and will include a series of national level training workshops on developing nominations to the Memory of the World registers, a national survey of documentary heritage, as well as a publication and accompanying exhibition on the country’s rich documentary heritage.
Read more about this project on the UNESCO Bangkok website.
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example silk archive
A seminar on the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme and the Development of Archives Work was held at the Suzhou City Convention Centre in Suzhou China on 23 November 2016. Mr Qu Futian the mayor of Suzhou and Mr Li Minghua the chair of MOWCAP and the Director-General of the State Archives of China gave welcome speeches.
The Suzhou City Archives is home to The Archives of Suzhou Silk Samples of Modern and Contemporary Times and the speakers from China made many important comments on the importance of this collection. Mrs Xiao Peng the Director-General of the Suzhou City Archives spoke about the historical culture in silk archives. Mr Xu Yongjun an associate professor from the School of Information Resource Management at Renmin University of China spoke on the protection and development of industrial cultural heritage. Mr Yang Yongyuan, the chairman of the 6th China Silk Association spoke on Suzhou silk and the silk archives. Mr Zhao Yanchang, a Professor of the History School at Liao Ning University covered the development of local archives work and Mr Bu Jianmin, the deputy Director-General of the the Suzhou City Archives talked about the value of the inscribed items. Mr Wu Pincai, a professor at Soochow University and Dean of the Archives Department of the Social Academy spoke about how the inscription contributed to a wider understanding of the importance of the silk archives.
Other speakers were from the International Advisory Committee and Sub-Committees of the international UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Lothar Jordon (Germany, IAC) spoke about the work of the Sub-Committee on Education and Research; Dianne Macaskill (New Zealand, IAC) spoke about the importance of the Memory of the World Programme in making Pacific history visible; Jonas Palm ( Sweden, Sub-Committee on Technology ) spoke about the work of the Sub-Committee and the technical challenges of managing digital archives; Papa Momar Diop (Senegal, IAC) spoke about the expansion of Memory of the World in Africa and Vitor Fonseca(Brazil, IAC) covered the challenges and the advances of the Memory of the World Programme in South America.
