-
Archives for Change: Activist Archives, Archival Activism
In recognition of Archives Month (October) and UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (October 27), Archiving Human Rights will explore the theme of activism, in its myriad word forms and meanings, as it relates to archives and archivists.
WITNESS
September 29, 2010
-
Human Rights Archives: Report from SAA, Part 1
Last week, I attended the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in Washington, DC. There were a number of sessions relevant to human rights archives and archivists this year, most notably the inaugural meeting of the new Human Rights Archives Roundtable, and the panel it organized with the Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives Roundtable, entitled "Silence No More! Archives Threatened by Political Instability."
Yvonne Ng
August 19, 2010
-
Inside the Media Archive: Metadata
In the WITNESS Media Archive, we rely on a lot of open-source and openly documented (i.e. with published specs) resources to manage our collection of human rights videos created by our partners all over the world.
Yvonne Ng
July 21, 2010
-
Forensic Anthropology, Video, and Archives
In mid-April, an episode of NPR program "Speaking of Faith," featuring a representative of the Argentine forensic anthropology team (EAAF) aired. The guest spoke about how recovering the remains of victims of repressive regimes leads to healing, the re-writing of history, and the prosecution of justice.
WITNESS
June 4, 2010
-
Thoughts on archives “fitting in”, and processing the Rainlake donation.
I have had the pleasure of interning in the WITNESS Media Archive for the past semester. I chose this internship because I hoped to put my Masters in Human Rights Studies and my Masters in Library Science to work in the video archive.
WITNESS
June 3, 2010
-
An Archivist’s Perspective on Access and Privacy
The New York Times reports that earlier this month, a US District Court granted a petition by Chevron to subpoena 600 hours of footage from Crude: The Real Price of Oil. The film, by director Joe Berlinger, documents a landmark lawsuit filed by 30,000 Ecuadorean Amazon residents against the oil company for allegedly contaminating the jungle and creating a “death zone” the size of Rhode Island.
Yvonne Ng
May 23, 2010
-
Archiving Human Rights
Last year, 2009, WITNESS devoted a considerable amount of time to strategic planning from which emerged a new and re-conceived way of approaching what we do, which is, simply put, video advocacy.
WITNESS
May 11, 2010
-
Highlights from the Orphan Film Symposium: Part 2
Following on my post Tuesday, here are more highlights from the Orphan Film Symposium I attended last week:
Yvonne Ng
April 15, 2010
-
Highlights from the Orphan Film Symposium: Part 1
Last week I attended the 7th Orphan Film Symposium in New York City. “Orphans,” as it is known, is a biannual event that draws archivists, preservationists, scholars, collectors, and artists from around the world to watch and discuss non-commercial and/or neglected films.
Yvonne Ng
April 13, 2010
-
New Tactics Dialogue follow-up
Earlier this month New Tactics in Human Rights hosted an online dialogue Documenting Human Rights Violations: Choosing the Right Approach featuring practitioners from a variety of fields. Although a bit hard to navigate, there's a wealth of interesting commentary. Here are a few highlights:
WITNESS
February 10, 2010
-
New Tactics dialogue on human rights documentation
Documenting Violations: Choosing the Right Approach is an online dialogue being facilitated by New Tactics in Human Rights, beginning today and running through February 5, 2010.
WITNESS
January 27, 2010
-
‘Archives Power’ virtual reading group
I've mentioned the book Archives Power: Memory, Accountability and Social Justice by Rand Jimerson on this blog on a few occasions but haven't had a chance to post about it at any length.
WITNESS
January 4, 2010
-
New & of Note
An update on the disposition of the archives of the International Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda is available; see The Documentalist for a good summary, courtesy of James Simon.
WITNESS
December 7, 2009
-
Voices of Rwanda video testimony project
Our series of video interviews relating to archives and human rights continues on the Hub, with Taylor Krauss, founder/director of Voices of Rwanda.
WITNESS
December 1, 2009
-
Reaching Out at AMIA
On November 4-7, I attended the Association of Moving Image Archivists’ (AMIA) Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Since AMIA is based in the US, and most of its conferences are held here, most attendees are American or Canadian.
Yvonne Ng
November 17, 2009