Project

Strengthening Cultural Heritage Preservation Through Construction of Archival Materials

Summary

The materials lost in earthquakes make it clear that our preservation of accumulated tangible and intangible archive materials is insufficient. So, we are undertaking measures to strengthen preservation of cultural heritage through construction of archive materials. Specifically, we believe the issue is the loss of physical attribute information connected to archive information, the memories and thoughts that exist in archive materials and that connected meaning, so the goal is to indicate information and memory related to cultural heritage inside archive materials.

 

Until now, we have been working on a survey of the remains of evacuation sites and damage conditions from the Great East Japan Earthquake as well as retrieval and preservation of historical documents and materials from Futaba Town, Fukushima Prefecture. We have found many items that paint a vivid picture in the remains of evacuations centers, such as collections of 1,000 paper cranes for well-wishing, good luck flags, festival items and signs. We will document people’s memories of these inside the archive materials. We will also continue to conduct surveys to inspect areas struck by disaster around the world and conduct surveys for remains and materials from those locations.

 

In this research, the information on the required place, time and person (people) for archive material is provided as open data to create the infrastructure of information required to solve a variety of current societal issues by ensuring public access to information which is expected to promote study of cultural diversity.

 

Reference site:

Preserving Futaba Town’s Archive Materials of the Great East Japan Earthquake for Future Generations:http://www.slis.tsukuba.ac.jp/futaba-archives/

 

Company

Archive Materials

Main member