Memories of South Sudan: Glimpses of a Recent Past

In 2011 Norway decided to give funding for a South Sudan National Archives (SSNA) building as Norway’s independence gift to South Sudan, . This was in the recognition of the need to preserve the nation’s history for its people and future generations. The independence gift triggered the idea of collecting archive-worthy film and photo material in Norway of interest for South Sudan’ National Archive. A working group of persons with interest for such a project was established under Support group for Sudan and South Sudan (SFS), Sudansupport.no . All were well aware of the state of the archive material in Juba, thus wanted the project to be in line with the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) project Sudan Open Archive, https: //sudanarchive.net. Free digital searchable collections with open access, has been an inspirational model for the project, e.g. photo collections of the The digital museum(s) in Norway, www.digitaltmuseum.no. In order for photos to be archive-worthy, the quality of a photo has to be of a minimum required standard. To be searchable in an archive, information (metadata) about each item has to be recorded and stored in a database. Aust-Agder Museum and Archives (AAma) has supported the project with technical advice and digitization. Without this support, the project would never have reached international archive standards More than 2000 photos are selected and registered in the database and several hundred more remains to be tagged with metadata. More than 20 photographers have shared their slides and paper copies. In addition Norwegian Church Aid and Norwegian People’s Aid have shared their archive photos with us. In this catalogue/album we have only had room for a bit more than 100 photos from 12 photographers. For each photo there is a reference to the database, indicating title, photographer, location, and year. The next step is to make the database available to the South Sudan National Archives and establish a searchable web version for the public domain with the license CC BY-SA. AAma will in the meantime secure the masterfile of the database.

Oslo September 2021 Linda Thu Photo and film archive working group: Kristen Fl gstad, Arthur H yen Tomm Kristiansen Kjell-Håkon Salicath Henrik Stabell Linda Thu (chair) Digitization: Hannele Fors, Aust-Agder Museum and Archives (AAma) Cover front: 2008 - Children in Terekeka - Photo: Henrik Stabell - SFS.NPA.HS.0672 Cover back:: 2008-Inspecting the field in Yei - Photo: Henrik Stabell - SFS.NPA.HS.0596