{"id":8213,"date":"2021-11-01T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T10:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/?p=8213"},"modified":"2025-07-03T12:13:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:13:03","slug":"conference-music-archives-in-southern-africa-challenges-opportunities-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/uncategorized\/conference-music-archives-in-southern-africa-challenges-opportunities-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference – Music Archives in Southern Africa. Challenges, Opportunities, Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
\u00a9\u00a0Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

16 November 2021 – 9.00-16.30
Dibuka Library at the Alliance fran\u00e7aise JHB<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Worldwide, and for several decades, archive centres have received, classified, preserved, and promoted sound and audiovisual sources from public administrations or private collections. However, when it comes to music archives and collections, very few institutions in southern Africa are dedicated to such collection, preservation, and curation. Many collections in private care are at risk of being lost or thrown away. The archives that do preserve this heritage face increasing challenges to look after their collections and make their material available for users. Not only is material carriers becoming increasingly obsolete \u2014think about reel-to-reel tapes or a VHS tape\u2014 but the cost of digitizing and making that material available is still relatively high. This poses a real challenge to music archives as users are no longer accessing material \u201cthrough the projection of a film or the listening of a cassette,\u201d but \u201caudiovisual archives are revealed, analysed, communicated\u201d through digitized files. Similarly, Sandrine Gill notes that for \u201cnatively digital audiovisual archives, the issues of communication, dissemination and perpetuation are posed in other, equally complex terms: although they are in digital form, these archives call upon their own cognitive and memory faculties. One does not view an archive document or listen to a recording in the same way as one reads a written document.” This presents a variety of challenges to archivists, curators, and researchers, but also opportunities for innovation. 
 
The conference organised by IFAS-Research aims to address these challenges in a southern African context by inviting researchers, curators, and experts from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to discuss these issues during a day-long conference. The conference will be organized in three sessions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Challenges and opportunities of curating music archive in southern Africa<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Digitality and the cost of taking music archive online<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Finding and using music archive in the global South.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

     
    Participants will be invited to offer their views on the (re)discovery of musical sources and their methodological reflexion on the curation and conservation of such archives. What are the questions they ask when deciding what is musical heritage and what is not? What to preserve and what not?  What are the challenges of conserving music archives in relation to copyright legislation and digital costs; what are some of the uses of these resources by historians, anthropologists, musicologists, and social scientists?  We hope to engender a lively discussion that will benefit both archival professions, researchers and curators involved and interested in the care and use of southern Africa\u2019s music heritage. 

    RSVP REQUIRED. If you wish to attend the conference via Zoom, please send us an email (comm.research@ifas.org.za) to receive the link.<\/strong>

     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PROGRAMME<\/strong><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    \n

    9:30 \u2013 9:40:<\/strong>\u00a0Introduction\/Opening remarks<\/p>\n

    9:40 \u2013 10:05:<\/strong>\u00a0Projection du film\/ Film projection\u00a0The Hidden Years of South African Music

    10:05 \u2013 12:15:<\/strong>\u00a0Finding and using music archive in the global South<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Thorsten Schu\u0308tte\u00a0(Stolen Moments Project \u2013 Namibian Music History Untold) The Stolen Moments Archive: (Re)discovering and protecting Namibian musical heritage
      \u00a0<\/li>\n
    • Alice Aterianus-Owanga\u00a0(University of Cape Town\/ Universite\u0301 de Gene\u0300ve):
      \u201cThe truth weighs as a stone\u201d. Making ethnographic film and music archive in Gabonese \u201cchronophage\u201d regime
      \u00a0<\/li>\n
    • Denis Constant-Martin\u00a0(Universite\u0301 de Bordeaux):\u00a0From fieldwork to Archives: Festivals, Musics, Identities, and Politics in Cape Town
      \u00a0<\/li>\n
    • Charlotte Grabli\u00a0(CNRS\/UCLA):\u00a0A \u2018musical region\u2019 in the decolonisation era: Sonic territories and politics in Angola and the Congo(s), 1950-1970s<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      13:15 \u2013 14:45:\u00a0<\/strong>Challenges and opportunities: Curating music archives in South Africa<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Lizabe\u0301 Lambrechts\u00a0(Africa Open Institute, Hidden Years Musical Archive):\u00a0Letting the Tape Run: The creation and preservation of the Hidden Years Music Archive
        \u00a0<\/li>\n
      • Lee Watkins\u00a0(ILAM \u2013 International Library of African Music): Unlocking the archive: The International Library of African Music (ILAM), digitisation, and its mission in the twenty-first century \u00bb
        \u00a0<\/li>\n
      • Valmont Layne\u00a0(University of the Western Cape):\u00a0Restitution, technics and disciplinary objects in the preservation of African music<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n


        14:45 \u2013 16:00:<\/strong>\u00a0Online access, digitally, and law: Presentations + general discussion<\/p>\n

          \n
        • Traver Mudzonga\u00a0(Wits University, Cultural Policy and Management)\u00a0
          \u00a0<\/li>\n
        • Kalin Pashaliev\u00a0(Music for Africa)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
          16:00 \u2013 16:30:<\/strong>\u00a0Pistes de conclusion\u00a0(Chloe\u0301 Buire, CNRS, IFAS-Recherche)\u00a0et discussion ge\u0301ne\u0301rale
          \/ Concluding remarks\u00a0(Chloe\u0301 Buire, CNRS, IFAS-Research)\u00a0and general discussion<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          16 November 2021 – 9.00-16.30Dibuka Library at the Alliance fran\u00e7aise JHB Worldwide, and for several decades, archive centres have received, classified, preserved, and promoted sound and audiovisual sources from public administrations or private collections. However, when it comes to music archives and collections, very few institutions in southern Africa are dedicated to such collection, preservation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-conferences","category-events","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8213"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8217,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213\/revisions\/8217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}