PANEL 5: From the South: A New Alignment for Digital Preservation
Tracks
Rongomātāne C
| Wednesday, November 5, 2025 |
| 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM |
| Rongomātāne C |
Speaker
Robin Wright
Head Australasia & Asia-pacific
Digital Preservation Coalition
From the South: A New Alignment for Digital Preservation
Summary Abstract
The rapid growth of DPC membership in Australasia & Asia-Pacific since 2022 shows the importance of local context for digital preservation. This panel will showcase the work being done by DPC members in Australasia & Asia-Pacific and explore how digital preservation practice is both shaping and being shaped by the evolving social, geographic and cultural contexts around information, knowledge and data management in our region. Speakers on the panel will describe some of the key digital preservation work being undertaken at their institutions with a focus on two main areas: the challenges of preserving changeable artworks and developing appropriate management systems for Indigenous cultural material.
The Australasia and Asia-Pacific region has a colonial history and a living Indigenous cultural heritage, but digital preservation practices have developed predominantly outside of this context. Therefore, preserving digital material in our region requires new approaches that include engaging with external voices and communities to allow a collaborative re-shaping of practices and space for a diversity of perspectives around the management of knowledge. The work being done by DPC members in our region opens new possibilities for engaging with collections and suggests a new alignment for digital preservation.
The Australasia and Asia-Pacific region has a colonial history and a living Indigenous cultural heritage, but digital preservation practices have developed predominantly outside of this context. Therefore, preserving digital material in our region requires new approaches that include engaging with external voices and communities to allow a collaborative re-shaping of practices and space for a diversity of perspectives around the management of knowledge. The work being done by DPC members in our region opens new possibilities for engaging with collections and suggests a new alignment for digital preservation.
Biography
Robin Wright is the Head Australasia & Asia-Pacific for the DPC. She is a copyright lawyer interested in the intersection of copyright and digital technologies in cultural institutions and tertiary education. Robin has worked in libraries and legal services in the Australian university sector and was previously a Research Fellow at the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law school. She has managed several digital research projects in the GLAM sector. Robin is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, is on the board of the Australian Digital Alliance and is Co-Lead of Creative Commons Australia.
Mar Cruz is the digital and time based-media conservator at the Heritage Conservation Centre, which manages the Singapore National Collection. He completed his MA in Cultural Materials Conservation from the University of Melbourne, with a focus on Objects conservation. His interests include software art, installation art, conservation workflows and the potential uses of emulation.
Asti Sherring (she/her) is the Manager Changeable and Digital Collections, National Museum of Australia. She specialises in Time-based Media conservation and relational approaches to cultural heritage collections. Asti is currently undertaking doctorate research at the University of Canberra and is Honorary Senior Lecturer, Humanities, Arts and Social Science, Australian National University.
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