On 20^th October, The 2017 FIAT/IFTA Archive Achievement Awards and 40th Anniversary Gala Dinner took place at The Museo Interactivo de Economia, Mexico City. Among 3 major awards, Shanghai Audio-Visual Archives (SAVA) won the “Best Archive Preservation Project” award with “Visual Memorandum of Modern Chinese Education”, thus became the sole winner among the broadcasting institutions of Asia that competed in this year’s conference.

Founded in 1977, more than 250 members have joined FIAT/IFTA that promotes co-operation amongst radio and television archives, multimedia and audiovisual archives and libraries, and all those engaged in the preservation and exploitation of moving image and recorded sound materials and associated documentation.

The 2017 FIAT/IFTA World Conference took place in Mexico City, hosted by the Fonoteca Nacional, in collaboration with TV UNAM and the SPR, National Broadcast System, from October 18 to October 21. The topic of this conference was “Living in the Digital Age; connecting Roots and Cultures”. SAVA was invited as one of the major member from Asia.

SAVA’s “Visual Memorandum of Modern Chinese Education” was 1 of 9 nominees competing for 2017 FIAT/IFTA Archive Achievement Awards. It became the winner of Best Archive Preservation Project because, according to the Jury, “This is a project preserving the valuable visual collection about the history of many Chinese colleges widely open to the public, a huge work of archive preservation with interdisciplinary research.The purpose is to trace the life of educators and educates in modern China, uncovering the mysteries of China’s modern education and to record a vivid and rarely-known history”

The development of modern education in China paralleled China’s difficult and persistent pursuit for modernity, for China is an ancient nation. Although “Visual Memorandum of Modern Chinese Education” was only a fragmentary record, it is of infinite historical and cultural value none the less. It presented the historical situation of modern Chinese educators and students from multiple angles and levels, restored many original records of Chinese education scenes, and built a vivid and alternative history of Chinese education, as a visual-video addendum, it could provide samples and inspiration for the development of future education.

Shanghai Audio-Visual Archives had long been dedicated to the collection, research and development of China's historical footage. The "Video Memorandum of Modern Chinese Education" project’s aim was to create a database of modern Chinese educational images that contain archival footage, text catalogs, and related historical information, to compile a visual archive for the history of modern Chinese education.