At the beginning of August, Teklė Tomkutė-Vaičiulienė, a museologist and a collection curator of the Photography Museum, visited the French National Audiovisual Institute, where during a special session, using the developing INA-SAPHIR technology, a unique audio recording preserved in the Šiauliai Aušra Museum was reproduced. This was a directly recorded (presumably in the laboratory of Stasys Brašiškis (1896-1989) in Šiauliai) gramophone record, which was voiced by the famous Šiauliai artist, pedagogue, photographer, local historian and a multifaceted personality – Gerardas Bagdonavičius (1901-1986). The INA-SAPHIR technology is perhaps the only technology that enables the reproduction of this audio recording, which is in a complicated condition and of a non-standard type. The challenging task brought together Lithuanian and French institutions for a common goal and helped to digitize the unique exhibit of the Šiauliai Aušra Museum.

Specialists of the French National Audiovisual Institute opened up the doors of their offices, laboratories and workshops and showed impressive behind-the-scenes work. The opportunity to see the preserved archives, to try to perceive their scale and diversity left an indelible impression, while the story about INA’s broad activities, mission, functions and international relations allowed to understand the meaning of continuous work and ongoing processes. We are happy to have established new inter-institutional connection for promising works.

We are grateful to Jean-Hugues Chenot and Jean-Etienne Noiré, the representatives of the French National Audiovisual Institute, for the opportunity to come and participate in the sound reproduction process of the fragile gramophone record. It was meaningful to observe dedicated professionals’ work and efforts to reproduce the best possible version of the audio recording. It is incredible how, thanks to many years of technology development, an intriguing recording is reborn and will live one more life after the sound reproduction and restoration process.

The reproduced audio recordings are being prepared for a general audience. It is expected that G. Bagdonavičius’ voice will sound in the museum’s nearest future projects and will open up wider contexts.