This discussion in this IBM² session will coincide with the unveiling of the model of The Osianama, Osian's flagship cultural complex to   be inaugurated in 2009.

 In recent times the archive has begun to transform itself in the minds of users, creative personalities and cultural entrepreneurs from being a repository of dust-laden arcane knowledge into becoming a trove for new ideas and visions that promise to enchant our futures and bring about all round prosperity for everyone concerned. All kinds of research and creative thinking, from the sciences to the humanities, are increasingly turning towards the archive to rejuvenate design, content and presentation of ideas and objects that will do justice to the sensibilities of the coming times. Such times are imagined as being one of encounters between cultures through travel and increased inter-visibility of populations through technology. This has occasioned the need for new thinking about the ways in which human beings will live in a more diverse, complex and sensorially plural world.

The Osianama session on the archive will bring together some of the leading cultural thinkers and institution builders of the day to discuss and think through new ways in which the archive today is becoming a dynamic site where research, creativity and generation of wealth come together today in unexpected ways.

 Bio-notes

Jyotindra Jain has been a leading cultural activist of India. He has been an eminent director of the Indian Crafts Museum, Delhi, where he had been instrumental in developing some of the most important programs for connecting up with all strata of Indian artistic practice. An anthropologist by training, he has lectured extensively on the dynamics of Indian culture and most notably on the relationship between Indian tradition and modernity. He has written many books on Indian culture and most recently authored India’s Popular Culture: Iconic Spaces, Fluid Images.

Jeannine Oppewall
Jeannine Oppewall is currently on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, where is she co-chairing the Museum Committee. She has previously worked with Charles Eames, then one of the world's most famous living designers, known principally for his line of furniture for Herman Miller. After working in radio for a few years in radio she entered the film business as a designer. She has designed films such as Tender Mercies, Catch me if You Can, Bridges of Madison County and received an Academy Award nomination for LA Confidential.

Anthony Slide Anthony Slide is the author or editor of more than sixty volumes on the history of popular entertainment and the editor of more than 100 titles in the Scarecrow Press Filmmakers series. The former resident film historian of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he is the recipient of a 1990 honorary doctorate of letters from Bowling Green University. At that time, he was hailed by Lillian Gish as "our preeminent historian of the silent film. Slide is the author of American Racist: The Life and Times of Thomas Dixon and Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses amongst many others.

Robert Gitt has been the Chief Preservation Officer at the legendary UCLA film archives. He has been responsible for restoring such classics as Orson Welles’ Macbeth, Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter, Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory and The Barefoot Contessa starring Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner amongst others. He is the recipient of the BFI Achievement Award and the Prix Jean Mitry at the Pordenone Film Festival.

David Weisman dropped out of Syracuse art school to design posters when he was discovered by the director Otto Preminger who asked him to replace the legendary designer Saul Bass (credits include North by Northwest, Westside Story and Anatomy of a Murder) as credits designer. He then hung out at the legendary Factory in New York, the experiences of which led to the production of Ciao! Manhattan filming the last five years of the life of Factory Girl Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller in the recent Factory Girl). The profits made from Ciao! led to the production of Hector Babenco’s adaptation of Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spiderwoman and also began a long association with screenwriter and filmmaker Leonard Schrader. For The Kiss…David Weisman received an Academy Award nomination, the first such instance for an independent producer.

Loubna Regragui is Project Manager, Thomson Foundation for Film &TV Heritage
Coordination (technical and administrative) and management of projects for film preservation in Cambodia, India, France, USA. She is based in Paris and has been involved in numerous archival retrieval projects. She has been an Orphanista, part of a collective that is dedicated to salvaging films. She is a member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.