OGUN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)-As the global community marks the 20th Anniversary of the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (WDAH), experts in Nigeria are highlighting the crucial role of sound and moving images in preserving collective memory, while simultaneously pointing to severe operational and resource challenges facing the industry.
The WDAH, established by UNESCO in 2005, celebrates the powerful stories that reflect cultural, social, and linguistic diversity.
The 2025 theme emphasizes the ongoing role of preservation and access for both analogue and digital formats.
In an interview to mark the day, audio recordist Funmilayo Fashuyi underscored the immediate impact of audiovisual arts on community identity.
“As a sound recordist, I’ve seen how powerful audio-visual storytelling is in our community,” Fashuyi stated.
“It helps us preserve our culture by recording our voices, languages, music, and everyday sounds. These stories remind us of who we are and allow future generations to understand our history.
“Global Reach vs. Local Resource Gaps
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Fashuyi acknowledged the positive strides made in global representation, particularly with the growth of Nollywood, documentaries, and digital content. “Our stories now reach global audiences, and many people around the world are beginning to appreciate our creativity and diversity,” she noted. However, she warned that this visibility is often compromised by significant resource limitations, which prevent stories from being told with the necessary depth and quality.
Fashuyi detailed the major setbacks currently experienced by the local industry: “Limited Access to Quality Equipment which is a shortage of professional sound and visual gear, low budgets which is Inadequate funding for high-quality productions.
She added technical training gaps which is explained to be the lack of proper technical training for crew members, operational difficulties which according to her includes challenges like noise pollution when recording on location.
Continuing she said archiving weakness is a part of it. She explained it to be weak archiving systems leading to the loss of old and valuable materials.
“Distribution hurdles can also be explained to be difficulty in distributing content widely across platforms.”When we have good production quality—especially strong sound and visuals—our community is represented more accurately and respectfully,” Fashuyi stressed, linking production quality directly to accurate representation.
The industry is reportedly working toward solutions by providing more training opportunities, making equipment more accessible, and encouraging producers to prioritize sound from the start of each project.
Fashuyi concluded that growing awareness and local and international partnerships are essential to raising production standards and protecting Nigeria’s audiovisual heritage for the future.