Melbourne Archive in UN World Register Melbourne Archive in UN World Register

A Melbourne archive that features the work of one of the first artists in the world to work with laser, sound and image production, Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski, has been included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register - a program governed by the United Nations, designed to preserve valuable archives and library collections across the world.

The announcement was made on February 20th, 2008 by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, who established the program in 1992 as a means of protecting against cultural 'collective amnesia'.

Born in Poland, JS Ostoja-Kotkowski (pictured) studied Fine Arts at Germany's Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in Germany during the early 1940s. Following this he migrated to Melbourne, where he enrolled at the Victorian School of Fine Arts National Gallery School.

Later based in South Australia where he died in 1995, Ostoja-Kotkowski was long held in high regard as a pioneer of art created through electronic mediums, using lighting, laser shows, computer graphics and many more aspects that merged the boundaries between art and science.

The archives of his work, which are owned in collections of both the University of Melbourne and the State Library of South Australia, now feature prominently as part of Australia's history, alongside the Endeavour Journal of James Cook and the Mabo Case Manuscripts, which were added to the register in 2001 and are held by Canberra's National Library of Australia.

Among the many important documents that reflect the world's cultural history, the archives are in very swish company with Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony also inscribed in the register!

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Melbourne Archive in UN World Register 

➼ Ostoja-Kotkowski Archive - University of Melbourne

➼ UNESCO

➼ UNESCO Memory of the World Register

➼ Related Article - University of Melbourne

➼ Wikipedia - Joseph_Stanislaus_Ostoja-Kotkowsk

➼ Wikipedia - UNESCO Memory of The World Register

❊ Also See... ❊

➼ Victorian Archives Centre | Public Record Office Victoria






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