IASA-BAAC 2026 Conference

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11:00am EEST

Safeguarding Baltic Voices: Collaborative Approaches to Video Testimony Preservation

Tuesday October 20, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm EEST

Conference hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania: Great Hall

This panel of four presentations brings together experts from the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom, and Stanford University Libraries to discuss collaborative models for the preservation, management, and use of Baltic video testimonies at each institution. The discussion explores how Estonian and Latvian video testimony collections – which include thousands of video interviews pertaining to WWII, the Soviet period, and expat communities – have been created and what joint efforts are underway to improve their preservation and accessibility. Through shared insights and examples, the panel highlights challenges and opportunities in fostering international partnerships and enhancing metadata interoperability, and illuminates the crucial role of audiovisual heritage in both preserving and presenting Baltic histories.

1. The Significance of Stanford’s Collaborative Efforts with the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, and Preventive Measures for the Security of the Video Testimony Collection
Evita Feldentāle, Lelde Neimane, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia

2. Oral History as a Cross-border Tool for Preserving Community Memory and Identity: The Case of Kogu Me Lugu
Marko Poolamets, Estonian Institute of Historical Memory

3. From Archive to Exhibition: Managing and Activating Audiovisual Testimonies at Vabamu
Liisi Ploom, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom

4. Safeguarding Baltic Voices: Stanford’s Approach to Video Testimony Preservation and Collaboration with Baltic Institutions
Liisi Esse, Hannah Frost, Stanford University Libraries

Speakers

Liisi Esse

Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies, Stanford University Libraries

Liisi Esse serves as Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies at Stanford Libraries. Her primary responsibility is to build and maintain Stanford’s collection of Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Finnish material and to enhance Baltic studies by advising scholars and students interested... Read More →

Evita Feldentāle

Head of the Audiovisual Archive, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia

Evita Feldentāle is the Head of the Audiovisual Archive of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. She graduated from the University of Latvia in 2017 with a master’s degree in history and has worked at the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia since 2015. Evita Feldentāle works... Read More →

Hannah Frost

Associate Director of Digital Library Services, Stanford University Libraries

Hannah Frost is Associate Director of Digital Library Services at Stanford University Libraries. Hannah holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin, with a specialization in archives and preservation. Since joining Stanford... Read More →

Lelde Neimane

Senior expert of The Audiovisual Archive, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia

Lelde Neimane is the Senior expert of the Audiovisual Archive of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia and was the Curator and Head of the Audiovisual Archive until 2020. She graduated from the University of Latvia in 2001 with a master’s degree in history and has worked at the... Read More →

Liisi Ploom

Head of Collections, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom

Liisi Ploom is the Head of Collections at Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia. Their work focuses on the preservation, management, and accessibility of museum collections, including audiovisual testimonies. They are responsible for collection systems, metadata... Read More →

Marko Poolamets

Head of audiovisual media and marketing, Estonian Institute of Historical Memory

Marko Poolamets has worked at the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory since 2019. He is responsible for the production and editing of interviews, production of documentary and educational films, and AI developments of the KML portal.

Tuesday October 20, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm EEST
Conference hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania: Great Hall

Panel, In Person

global Y
Zoom link https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82331938215
Zoom password 815104

1:30pm EEST

"Closing the Circle” Bringing the Diasporic Experience Back to the Homeland

Tuesday October 20, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm EEST

Conference hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania: Great Hall

This panel brings together three Chicago-based audiovisual archival projects representing three diasporic communities—the Not-So-Ordinary Polish American home movie collection, the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, and the Lithuanian Archives Project—each representing distinct waves of migration to that city. Each organization engages audiovisual archives as active agents of transnational connection, circulating the diasporic experience back to the homeland.

All three projects reframe amateur audiovisual materials (home movies, radio broadcasts, oral histories) as primary historical sources for understanding migrant life and creating bridges between private memory and public history. Polish families exchanged videotapes and cameras between Chicago and Poland as a form of presence across absence. Filipino American home movies on 16mm film, now appraised as among the earliest surviving documentary records of this diasporic community, capture migrant leisure and mobility as acts of self-authorship. Lithuanian community recordings sustained cultural and political identity through the Cold War and into the post-Soviet era, linking diaspora nodes from Chicago to Argentina to Australia.

Panelists will discuss shared ethical and methodological considerations across all three projects, as well as their efforts to engage communities, both in Chicago and the homeland, with the materials.

Speakers

Audra V. Adomenas

President, Lithuanian Archives Project

Audra Adomenas is an archivist and nonprofit leader based in Chicago. She is the founder and president of the Lithuanian Archives Project (LAP), established in 2009 and incorporated in 2012 as a not-for-profit organization in the State of Illinois, USA, dedicated to preserving, digitizing... Read More →

Ashley Dequilla

Artist-filmmaker and Archivist, University of Illinois Chicago

Ashley Dequilla is an artist-filmmaker and archivist specializing in Philippine ethnographic and diasporic collections based in Chicago, Illinois. She holds an MFA in Moving Image and is completing her MA in Art History from the University of Illinois Chicago. Her efforts in community... Read More →

Moriah Ulinskas

Founding Member, CAW Collective

Moriah Ulinskas is a community archivist and public historian whose research examines histories of dispossession, focusing on how marginalized communities organized to resist displacement and how that history of resistance lies latent in archival collections today. She is a founding... Read More →

Agata Zborowska

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral F, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/University of Chicago/University of Warsaw

Agata Zborowska is an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the University of Chicago and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Her current research and archival project investigates home movies and related oral histories of Polish... Read More →

Tuesday October 20, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm EEST
Conference hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania: Great Hall

Panel, In Person