WITNESS, Author at WITNESS Blog

Event: Archive Fever at NYPL This coming Monday April 14 at the New York Public Library: “One of the most compelling issues explored by artists in recent years centers on the nature and meaning of the archive, that is, how we create, store, and circulate pictures and information. Against the standard view of the archive which evokes a dim, musty […] April 11, 2008
New Human Rights Archives newsletter from ICA The Archives and Human Rights Working Group of the International Council on Archives has published its first newsletter. According to the editorial, “The newsletter will appear on a monthly basis until the ICA Congress in July 2008. A possible outcome of the Congress could be the establishment of a formalized Network, possibly within the ICA, […] April 10, 2008
Orphan Film Symposium pt. II The Orphan Film Symposium made possible a fantastic convergence in NYC of archivists, filmmakers, scholars and students from around the globe this past week, with equal diversity represented in the film and video program. In addition to screenings of animated shorts, educational films, silents, newsreels and government sponsored films, we were pleased to see a […] April 4, 2008
On the Seesmic rooftop with Loic Le Meur… A brief dispatch from San Francisco, where yesterday I spent some quality time with Loic Le Meur, Cathy Brookes and VinVin at Seesmic. As well as a quickfire exchange with users on Seesmic – some of whom are already on the Hub – Loic and I had a quick chat on Seesmic’s rooftop: More soon […] March 27, 2008
Orphans Film Symposium WITNESS Media Archive staff will participate in the Orphans Film Symposium this week. What is an orphan film? From the Orphans website: Narrowly defined, it’s a motion picture abandoned by its owner or caretaker. More generally, the term refers to all manner of films outside of the commercial mainstream: public domain materials, home movies, outtakes, […] March 25, 2008
Behind the Abu Ghraib photographs: Gourevitch/Morris New Yorker article Thanks to everyone at Duke for a great visit. I had the opportunity to meet and speak with a great group of archivists there, as well as to screen Missing Lives: Disappearances and Impunity in the North Caucasus to a more general audience. Produced with partner Human Rights Center Memorial, the video documents the problem […] March 21, 2008
Calling All Bloggers: Keep Tibet in the Spotlight Monks marching in the streets, students staging sit-in protests, midnight raids by the military, monasteries sealed off, towns and cities sealed off…this is Tibet. The most violent protests in nearly 20 years continue after last Monday’s pro-independence rallies commemorating the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet. The Chinese government reports 16 people […] March 17, 2008
Event: visit to Archive for Human Rights at Duke Next week I’ll be visiting and speaking at the Archive for Human Rights at Duke University. I’ll be screening a recent Memorial/WITNESS video, Missing Lives: Disappearances and Impunity in the Northern Caucasus, and talk about some of the production and archiving processes and challenges; the announcement is here. I’m looking forward to seeing the Duke […] March 12, 2008
We're in the Netxplorateur 100! Congratulations to our friends at Psiphon, who have won the Grand Prize at the Forum Netxplorateur in Paris – deserved recognition for a very exciting tool… What we didn’t know until Psiphon told us is that the Hub was selected too as one of the Netxplorateur 100 – “100 Net trailblazers creating new digital practices […] March 5, 2008
U Conn Symposium I returned last night from a brief but really productive symposium at the University of Connecticut, organized and hosted by the Dodd Center, home to the University’s human rights collections. The symposium was designed in part as a follow-up to last October’s conference at Columbia, and an effort to foster collaboration and resource-sharing among organizations […] March 5, 2008
Guest post: Eric Tars' Latest Dispatch from Geneva Eric Tars is a staff attorney at the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), which works to prevent and end homelessness by serving as the legal arm of the US movement to end homelessness. Tars is in Geneva for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). […] February 22, 2008
Event: Human Rights Archives & Documentation at U Conn March 3 & 4, 2008: The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut is hosting a one and a half day symposium, “Human Rights Archives and Documentation: Transforming Ideas into Practice.” Speakers include Patricia Wald of the ICTY and Trudy Huskamp Peterson, former Acting Archivist of the […] February 21, 2008
Kenya in crisis: a search for citizen cameras… The crisis in Kenya may ultimately stem from a democratic failure, corruption and tribalism, or poverty and inequality, but either way, evidence of brutal violence continues to emerge, both in terms of killings and of violence against women and girls, and there’s news of an impending health crisis. For a quick tour d’horizon, including ways […] January 10, 2008
Human Rights at Debatepedia Debatepedia (developed by the International Debate Education Association) is looking to become the Wikipedia for debate… There’s an overarching human rights category, as well as sections on business, conflict and security, economics, the environment, and law. [via Andrew Nachison at iFocos] December 12, 2007
International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (via H-Net) Received this morning via H-Net listserv: Title: International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500-Present Description: Call for Essay Contributions — […] This eight-volume, 5,000-page, peer-reviewed work, to be published by Blackwell next year is intended to become the definitive reference work on the role of popular agency in transforming the world … Contact: jcohn@pnc.edu http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=159819 […] December 12, 2007