‘It’s Your Story, Don’t Lose It’ – Using Sound And Image Heritage to Bridge Cultures

Abstract

On 27^th October, 2016, the J. H. Kwabena Archives of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana joined forces with UNESCO and other audiovisual archive institutions globally to celebrate “The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage” (WDAVH), a day set aside by UNESCO to raise general awareness of the need for urgent measures to be taken and to acknowledge the importance of audiovisual documents as an integral part of national identity.  The theme for that year’s celebration was “It’s your story, don’t lose it.”  My outfit organized a roundtable discussion on the theme and invited three renowned professors from the University of Ghana, who have had tremendous experience in fieldwork documentation, archiving, and dissemination.  The three discussants were; Professor Daniel Avorgbedor [1], Professor John Collins[2], and J. H. Kwabena Nketia, founder of what is now known as the J. H. Kwabena Nketia Archives.  After the roundtable discussions, I did a solo interview with him on UNESCO’s theme for the day.  This interview collates the views I gathered from Nketia from the roundtable discussion and the subsequent solo interview in the comfort of his home in Madina, a suburb of Accra.

[1] http://www.ug.edu.gh/music/staff/prof-daniel-avorgbedor

[2] http://www.ug.edu.gh/music/staff/prof-edmund-john-collins