The Nelson Mandela 20 years of freedom website was launched today, through a partnership between the Visual History Archive and the Nelson Mandela Foundation
February 10, 2010 – The Nelson Mandela Foundation, in partnership with the Visual History Archive (VHA), launched a free online archival portal today, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Mr Mandela.
According to Craig Matthew, director of Doxa Productions, VHA’s parent company, the website, Nelson Mandela 20 years of freedom, involves the integration of documents, photographs and audio-visual material related to Mr Mandela’s release and allows users “to explore the spatial and temporal relationships between items”.
“This project began as a concept about 10 years ago as I began to look into the problems of existing audio-visual archives, with my own (Doxa) collection as an example,” said Matthew. “This prompted me to explore and research some of the deeper issues around the mechanical problems related to the preservation of material, and also around the way archives are stored, categorised and made available.”
According to Matthew, as the information age gathers momentum, there is a large amount of information haphazardly stored on the internet, as well as in libraries and in institutions around the world. This development has allowed archivists to change the way information is stored, to highlight how most information is part of a larger narrative. This opens up potential to challenge dominant narratives of the past.
Sello Hatang, Nelson Mandela Foundation Information Communications Manager, said: “The Centre for Memory and Dialogue saw this as an opportunity to spread Madiba’s legacy. It is our mandate to make his legacy accessible to the world; the 20th anniversary of his release presents this opportunity.”
The aim, said Matthew, is to help create a more informed society where knowledge is “well organised and freely available to everyone”.
“The system is based on bringing together all forms and formats of archive together with mapped data, a temporal component and oral history and memory,” added Matthew.
The Visual History Archive was formed by Doxa Productions in 2008 and is an independently funded, non-profit entity based in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Visual History Archive initiated a digital archiving project in 2008, which involves establishing relationships with historical audio-visual collection owners and custodians, conducting archival audits and sourcing previously unknown footage, digitising and preserving audio-visual material, and creating freely accessible online portals.