Five NGOs launch online video archive
Called PAD.MA for Public Access Digital Media Archive, it’ll to be previewed in Mumbai on February 28 and primarily contains video footage and unfinished films with detailed text-annotation………….GEORGINA MADDOX
IMAGINE having access to an online library of video clips, news and detailed documentary footage on over 150 Indian socio-political issues at the click of the mouse, and for free.
Struck by the absence of such a public source after crises like the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Gujarat riots, a group of activists have come together to launch the first such collection in Asia.
Called PAD.MA for Public Access Digital Media Archive, the online archive due to be previewed in Mumbai on February 28 primarily contains video footage and unfinished films with detailed textannotation.
To start with, the archive – put together by Bombay NGOs chitrakarkhana/ CAMP, Majlis and Point of View, Alternative Law Forum from Bangalore (ALF) and oil21.org from Berlin will have about 100 hours of footage and expand to about 400 hours next year.
Initially, the group will install five computers at one of their offices in Mumbai for people to browse the site which will eventually be available on the internet.
“We see PAD.MA as a way of opening up a set of images, intentions and effects present in video footage and resources that conventions of video-making, editing and spectatorship have tended to suppress, or leave behind,” said Ashok Sukumaran, a new media artist and activist who is one of the contributors to the archive.
For instance, Chitrakarkhana will showcase its work on tactical and community media television; the Mumbai Project documents public dissent, protests and discussion in the city post 9/11 and post Gujarat.
They also have community media footage generated in projects by WI City TV, a local cable channel run in the Bangalore suburb of Shivajinagar. ALF has interviews on piracy and copyrights and events like the opening of Rajnikanth hit Chandramukhi and the closing of Plaza, a landmark Bangalore cinema hall.
They also have community media footage generated in projects by WI City TV, a local cable channel run in the Bangalore suburb of Shivajinagar. ALF has interviews on piracy and copyrights and events like the opening of Rajnikanth hit Chandramukhi and the closing of Plaza, a landmark Bangalore cinema hall.
“What is unique about this site is that it provides access to unfinished films and footage. This helps viewers to arrive at their own conclusions instead of following the set idea of the filmmaker,” says documentary filmmaker and activist Shaina Anand of chitrakarkhana /CAMP, an independent initiative of filmmakers and artists.
Majlis has been making films on social and political subjects while running a multi-cultural arts initiative centre since 1990.
“Majlis has been working to make material available to the public since 2002. We started an offline storage centre called Godam (store house),” says Madhushree Dutta, the director of Majlis. After the 2002 Gujarat carnage and the Babri Masjid riots, activists like Dutta felt frustrated since they did not have enough visuals or documentation of events.
“Memories fluctuate and people forget easily, which is why it’s important to have documentation,” she adds.
Having worked on the project for five years, Dutta feels that offline storage of data is not adequate.
“We had to create a new interface in order to reach the public, and this site came as a viable answer to that need,” she said. “Being online is a way of ensuring that it’s an on-going project with a life of its own. It will encourage people to contribute to the making of the archive.”