Bury my bones but keep my words: The legacy of the dirge singer

The author’s experiences preparing and presenting at the 2013 (Nairobi, Kenya) and 2015 (Brussels, Belgium) SOIMA conferences form the basis for this reflection on the work of custodians safeguarding the sound and image heritage of the past. Drawing inspiration from the artistic reflections of acclaimed master poet Ko Awonoor and accomplished writer Yvonne Owuor on death and life viewed through …

Unlocking Sound and Image Heritage: Selected Readings from the 2015 SOIMA Conference

In Buenos Aires, the Museo del Cine – a small and relatively unknown museum – is working valiantly to save some of Latin America’s most valuable creative heritage. Dedicated to Argentina’s cinematographic history, the bulk of the collection currently consists of tens of thousands of film reels and video cassettes that are disintegrating and fading into obsolescence. Ravaged by war, the preservation of Syria’s …

Protecting heritage during a crisis: A case example from Syria

Heritage creates people’s memory as well as their existence. The Knooz Syria archive represents the history of the press and printing in Syria from the mid-nineteenth century up to the 1970s. When its founders began collecting materials, they did not predict the crisis that wrecked Syria beginning in 2011. Forced to flee Damascus, they left behind tens of thousands of …

The sonic heritage of ecosystems: Toward a formulation

This paper discusses the importance of the ‘paleo- soundscapes’ of remote natural habitats as unique footprints of the systemic behaviour of healthy ecosystems and proposes considering them as intangible heritage to be urgently recorded and preserved. The interdisciplinary project Fragments of Extinction has worked toward preserving that ecological heritage through multidimensional sound recording eldwork in primary equatorial rainforests since 2002. …

All you need is love: The preservation of photographic collections here, there and everywhere

Preservation of photographic materials, both physical and digital, presents numerous challenges, and photographic collections are at risk world-wide. In response to this danger, regional partners have worked with international organizations to forge global training initiatives and platforms centred on experiential learning and designed with curricula tailored to speci c climates, geographies, needs and outcomes. paper highlights three forward-thinking e orts. …

Open access: a challenging opportunity for audiovisual archives

In the broadest sense, archives are an embodiment of cultural artefacts that endure as signifiers of who we are and why. They are both a place of representation of these signifiers and their institutional form, providing tangible evidence of memory as well as defining memory institutionally within prevailing political systems and cultural norms. The principle of offering equal and open …