- Creation of an audio-visual Internet based interactive presentation of the world’s languages: the Language Exploratorium.
- Production of a Worldwide TV-Event celebrating the world’s cultural and linguistic diversity to be broadcasted in connection with the 60th birthday of the United Nations Organisation, 24th of October 2005.
‘What could be a better way to pay homage to the United Nations on the occasion of its 60th anniversary than to stress the value of cultural and linguistic diversity of the peoples of the World. After all, by celebrating the diversity of human culture we only strengthen the dialogue among civilisations, an idea rooted in the fundamental United Nations values. I congratulate you on your excellent initiative.’Kofi Annan, Secretary-General UN
The Voices of the World project has now been in development for three years. Significant results have been achieved and the project-strategy has been modified. We take this opportunity to inform you on both initiatives.Language Exploratorium
The creation of the Language Exploratorium is an ambitious and demanding challenge. After the initial conceptualisation phase, we finalised the Language Exploratorium-demo last autumn; a CD-ROM production aimed at the world’s public demonstrating a future Internet based presentation of all the world’s languages.
The actual Language Exploratorium should be based on a collection of material (stories, songs, myths, food etc.) produced by local people in their mother tongue all over the world with support of linguists, anthropologists and filmmakers, and made available to the general public in a playful and thought provoking way. The material should also be made available to linguists for analysis through the Internet.The CD-ROM demo has been presented at UNESCO’s meeting on Safeguarding of Endangered Languages in Paris May 2003, at a meeting in the linguistic archive association DELAMAN, at SOAS, London in November 2003 and elsewhere.
The Language Exploratorium is a long-term project that should be established in close collaboration with existing cultural and scientific institutions.
The concept developed by Voices of the World will hopefully inspire and encourage future development. Voices of the World will continue to promote the establishment of the Language Exploratorium as we see this interactive presentation of the world’s languages as a key element in increasing international awareness of the value of cultural and linguistic diversity.
Worldwide TV-Event
As we are now less than 14 months away from October 24th 2005, we have decided to concentrate on creating the worldwide TV-Event celebrating the world’s cultural and linguistic diversity to be broadcasted in connection with UN’s 60th Birthday, in October 2005.
We have developed a concept for the TV-event consisting of a 90’/50’ documentary special and multi-language mini series & vignettes, featuring native speakers from around the world.With support from the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs we are now producing a promo for the TV-Event, including an exclusive interview with Kofi Annan.
In the autumn of 2004 we expect to present the project at MIPCOM (Cannes) and at the International Documentary Forum (Amsterdam) and we expect to get public broadcasters from all parts of the world committed to broadcast the programmes in connection with UN’s 60th Birthday October 24th 2005.
Voices of the World has set up an office in Copenhagen. Project Development has been financed by Danish Center for Culture and Development, the Danish Film Institute, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, private foundations and voluntary work.
We take this opportunity to thank everybody for your help and support until this stage, and we encourage you all to contribute ideas and suggestions to the future development of the project. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Voices of the World
Forbindelsesvej 7
DK 2100 Copenhagen
DENMARK
E-mail voices@final-cut.dk
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Within this last year the Voices of the World project has moved ahead at considerable speed, and is now in a decisive phase. Just to remind you: Voices of the World is an initiative of UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, based on an original idea by Janus Billeskov Jansen. Voices of the World is endorsed by the UN and supported by the Danish Government. Voices of the World aims to build international popular awareness of the diversity of mankind by portraying the peoples of the world, giving face and voice to each culture and empowering every language to speak in order to strengthen our mutual belonging. From the outset the project consisted of two major elements: |