The Memory Project

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Proposal Application

Abstract

Chinese Documentary filmmaker Wu Wenguang launched the Memory Project in 2010 to collect oral histories from survivors of the Great Famine (1958-1961) in rural China. Wu’s studio in suburban Beijing, Caochangdi Station, is the home for this project. Since 2010, several young filmmakers have joined the project. They have been to 246 villages in 20 provinces and interviewed more than 1,220 elderly villagers. The Memory Project aims to shine light on one of modern China’s most traumatic episodes, the Great Famine of 1958-1961. The project also covers Great Leap Forward of 1958-1960, Land Reform and Collectivization of 1949-1953, the Four Cleanups Movement in 1964 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. The amateur filmmakers from Wu’s studio discovered their family histories and identities in the process of interviewing the villagers, reconciling the official history taught in schools with each family’s true experiences. The project thus records memory of China’s past and creates a legacy of its own. Recently Wu Wenguang chose Duke University’s Rubenstein Library as a repository for the raw footage of the project. Wu envisions Duke University Libraries as a safe home for these interviews to be preserved and processed into a digital collection for researchers worldwide to access. The library will create a pilot digital collection that will showcase a selection of the films online. This roundtable invites scholars, curators, and practitioners from Taiwan, China, and the US to discuss the various aspects of oral histories, ethnography, documentary practice, and issues of the digital archive specifically related to the Memory Project in its collection, preservation, and dissemination of personal story and collective memory vis-a-vis official history and state institution.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Luo Zhou, Duke University Libraries

Chair

• Guo-Juin Hong, Duke University

Discussants

• Wenchi Lin, Taiwan Film Institute

• Wenguang Wu, Caochangdi Work Station

• Li-Hsin Kuo, National Chengchi University