World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (WDAH) is a global observance annually celebrated on October 27 to raise general awareness of the need to take urgent measures and to recognize the significance and preservation risks of recorded sound and audiovisual documents.
World audiovisual heritage comprises of films, radio and TV programs, audio and video records, that have ever been made. Audiovisual documents are the most widely recognized transporters of essential data of the 20th and 21st centuries. They have become a significant addition to the traditional written documents.
Shockingly, that heritage is currently endangered, because sound recordings and moving pictures can be purposely demolished or hopelessly lost because of neglect, decay, and technological obsolescence.
Sadly, quite a bit of audiovisual heritage is at serious risk, particularly in developing nations, due to its tendency. Right now numerous experts work on the preservation of audiovisual heritage and make all that conceivable to save it for our future generations.
The fundamental goals of assigning the date of 27 October were recorded by UNESCO:
- raising public awareness of the requirement for preservation;
- giving opportunities to praise explicit local, national, or international aspects of the heritage;
- featuring the accessibility of documents;
- attracting media consideration regarding heritage issues;
- raising the cultural status of audiovisual heritage;
- featuring audiovisual heritage at serious risk, particularly in developing countries.
Rising above language and social limits, engaging promptly to the eye and the ear, to the educated and uneducated, audiovisual documents have changed society by becoming a permanent supplement to the traditional written record.
In any case, they are very vulnerable and it is assessed that we have close to 10 to 15 years to move audiovisual records to digital to prevent their loss. A significant part of the world’s audiovisual heritage has just been unalterably lost through neglect, demolition, rot, and the absence of resources, abilities, and structures, in this manner devastating the memory of humanity. Considerably more will be lost if stronger and purposeful international action isn’t made.
It was in this unique situation, that the UNESCO General Conference in 2005 affirmed the celebration of a World Day for Audiovisual Heritage as a system to raise general awareness of the requirement for earnest measures to be taken and to recognize the significance of audiovisual documents as a fundamental part of national identity.
2020 Theme: Your Window to the World
The theme of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage 2020 is “Your Window to the World “.
Audiovisual materials as documentary heritage objects give a Window to the World as we observe events we can’t join in, we hear voices from an earlier time who can presently don’t talk, and we make stories that illuminate and engage. Audiovisual content plays an undeniably important role in our lives as we look to comprehend the world and engage with our fellow beings.
The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered the urgent requirement for universal access to documentary heritage as an information resource, especially as memory institutions look to resume their ways to the general population. Close by this is close to the absence of empowering policies for preserving and offering access to documentary heritage things. This is additionally exacerbated by the lessening of funds accessible to archives, libraries, and museums, expanding the risk of permanent loss of heritage. Against this foundation, UNESCO is organizing an online policy dialogue among memory organizations and different stakeholders pointed toward distinguishing policy gaps in the digital preservation of documentary heritage in danger.
Why World Day for Audiovisual Heritage is being observed?
The General Conference of UNESCO approved the recognition of a World Day for Audiovisual Heritage in 2005 as a mechanism to raise general awareness of the need to save and shield significant audiovisual material for future generations, and for urgent measures to be taken to preserve this heritage and guarantee it stays available to the public now, and to people in the future.
Every year, October 27 is praised as the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage as on this day in 1980, UNESCO’s General Conference received the Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images, the first international instrument to pronounce the cultural and historical significance of film and TV recordings.
Activities and events that happen during the day include:
- Competitions, for example, a logo competition, to promote the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage;
- Local programs organized as a collaboration between national film documents, audiovisual societies, TV or radio stations, and governments;
- Panel conversations, conferences, and public talks on the significance of protecting significant audiovisual documents;
- Special film screenings.
Celebration of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage raises public awareness of the need for preservation of audiovisual heritage and stands out to the interesting local, national, and international aspects of heritage.
The entirety of the world’s audiovisual heritage is endangered. No place would it be able to be supposed to be preserved, however through activities, for example, the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage and the Memory of the World Program, the valuable work of protection experts are offered impetus to deal with a scope of technical, political, social, financial and different factors that compromise the safeguarding of our heritage.