Valletta Design Cluster
Bull Street
Valletta
Malta
- Arts
- Democracy and community development
- Heritage
- International/Cultural relations
- Others
We are a registered foundation, based in Malta and started following the ECoC Valletta 2018. We are a voluntary organisation with 4 part-time staff. At the moment, we have an Arts Council Malta grant that provides 20,000 euro operational funds per year. Our funding also comes from private digitisation work. Our main activities centre around the digitisation of analogue material held by Maltese communities, restoring access to previously lost images, sounds and narratives. The Magna Żmien digitisation studio can handle a range of legacy analogue audio-visual formats that were common among home consumers throughout the twentieth century. The material in our archive is then made available to artists and researchers. Partners include artists and researchers, as well as other local organisations such as Teatru Malta, the Horizon 2020 project Varcities, and the Valletta Design Cluster.
a) To collect memories about Malta, the Maltese and the Maltese diaspora that are held on legacy analogue and digital audio-visual media formats (including sound, moving images, still images, and other material ephemera) by digitising and migrating this content for long term preservation and open access. b) To record supporting information about this content through documentation and further research. c) To produce artistic and academic interpretations of this content in collaboration with memory stakeholders and creative arts practitioners in Malta and abroad. d) To provide advice, consultation and educational programmes in audio-visual preservation practices to individuals and organisations.
Magna Żmien digitises analogue material held by Maltese communities, restoring access to previously lost images, sounds and narratives. The organisation was established in 2017 for the European Capital of Culture programme, Valletta 2018. It was recently awarded Arts Council Malta’s three-year Investment in Cultural Organisations Malta fund for the second time. The Magna Żmien digitisation studio can handle a range of legacy analogue audio-visual formats that were common among home consumers throughout the twentieth century. Collections are digitised using the best available equipment, and employing good practice technical standards, following international standards set by IASA and Library of Congress, where possible. This content is shared on our platforms and through our activities, preserving it for future generations, while being careful to credit and respect the wishes of the donor. We make the material that we gather in our archive available to artists and researchers. Our activities include: a) Collecting Malta-related audio-visual ephemeral material, migrating the content from obsolete carriers to more stable and accessible formats, and preserving this content to international archival standards for long term public access. b) Documenting communities in Malta and its diaspora by undertaking primary research via interviews, oral histories and other methods. c) Conducting academic and artistic research upon Malta-related intangible cultural heritage and disseminating our findings by producing installations, exhibitions, performances, and print and digital publications that creatively reuse and reinterpret this material in publicly engaging contexts, in collaboration with creative practitioners and researchers in Malta and abroad. d) Educating individuals and organisations in audio-visual archiving and creative project development through formal and informal training programmes and partnerships. e) Developing working relationships with cultural heritage institutions in Malta and abroad. f) Fundraising, and thereby financing, aiding, supporting and developing selected projects that fall within the Foundation’s remit.
As an archival repository, Magna Zmien is keen to reach out to other similar organisations in the Euro-Med region, but is also happy to collaborate with organisations who have different aims and objectives, and with those in Malta. We can contribute to the Network through the preservation of this material through our work of democratising archives, collective memory and historical records and of providing access to personal and home-recorded material.
We feel we share the values of the Anna Lindh Foundation, and can contribute to providing alternative narratives which can work towards a more inclusive and empathic society. Our archival material can show populations in flux, and can demonstrate the universality of the human experience. We feel that being members of the Network can allow us to broaden our collaborations, and reach out to organisations with similar values.