The Memory Project Symposium

Join filmmakers, faculty, and librarians in a conversation reflecting on The Memory Project, a long-standing collaborative initiative that demonstrates the powerful intersection of academic research, creative production, teaching and learning, and library stewardship.

Through documentary filmmaking, oral history preservation, and digital archiving, the project has created enduring opportunities for scholarly inquiry, community engagement, and curricular innovation. This symposium brings together key collaborators to discuss the project's origins, evolution, impact, and future directions.

Speakers:
-Nicole Barnes (Associate Professor of History; Director, Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, Duke University)
-Jim Cheng (Guest Librarian, Director of C.V. Star East Asian Library, Columbia University)
-Maggie Dickson (Head, Repository Services, Duke University Library)
-Guo-Juin Hong (Associate Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, Duke)
-Naomi Nelson (Director, Rubenstein Library, Duke University)
-Zhang Mengqi 章梦奇 (Filmmaker)

Background:
The Memory Project is a groundbreaking digital oral history archive documenting the lived experiences of survivors of the Great Famine (1958-1961) in rural China. Initiated in 2010 by renowned filmmaker Wu Wenguang at the Chaochangdi Workstation in Beijing, the project has amassed over 1,000 interviews across nearly 250 villages. These testimonies offer an invaluable grassroots perspective on one of the most devastating periods in modern Chinese history.

In 2012, with the support of Duke University faculty, the Chaochangdi Workstation entrusted the collection to Duke University Libraries (DUL). Between 2015 and 2018, thanks to a Mellon Foundation-Council on East Asian Libraries Innovation Grant, DUL completed the arrangement, description, and metadata creation for the entire collection. All original digital materials are now securely housed in the Duke Digital Repository.

Since 2019, DUL has published the collection in phases. The initial launch of 300 interviews was made possible through close collaboration with the filmmakers during their 2019 residency. Today, the open-access digital archive includes 739 video interviews. The collection is actively used in teaching and research across disciplines and draws global scholarly attention.