The Surinaams Museum in Paramaribo holds the largest photographic collection in Suriname. Its ten thousand photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have barely been made accessible digitally. In partnership with the Surinaams Museum, the National Historical Museum will digitize two thousand photographs and make them available online.
Suriname and the Netherlands share a rich history that continues to the present day. The National Historical Museum aims to keep the stories of that shared past alive by publishing the photographs on Flickr.
This will bring the Surinaams Museum’s unique photographic collection to a broad audience. At a later stage, the Surinaams Museum and the National Historical Museum hope to publish a book featuring a selection of the best photographs.
More than seven hundred photographs are already available on the dedicated Flickr page.
Visit www.flickr.com/photos/stichtingsurinaamsmuseum.
By digitizing the photographs, the Surinaams Museum can make a large number of images accessible with limited resources; otherwise, they would remain hidden in storage. The National Historical Museum is providing a semiprofessional camera and two laptops, allowing Surinaams Museum staff to create high-resolution images without removing the fragile photographs from their albums.
Visitors can add information to the photographs and respond to other visitors’ comments
The digital images are then published online. This simple, inexpensive approach makes the collection accessible to researchers, students, documentary filmmakers, exhibition curators, and private individuals interested in Suriname.
They can assess individual photographs without traveling to the archive in Suriname. All photographs are protected by copyright. Anyone wishing to use an image can contact the Surinaams Museum.
The collection sometimes lacks information about the people or places depicted. Its Flickr page reaches a broad audience that can supply missing details. This crowdsourcing helps the Surinaams Museum—and everyone interested in the material—enrich the collection.
The National Historical Museum will also use this method in other parts of the world where little-known photographic collections preserve aspects of Dutch history.
Active public participation is one of the pillars of the National Historical Museum and plays a role in nearly all its projects. Visitors can add information to the Surinaams Museum photographs on Flickr and respond to other visitors’ comments.
This may generate new stories and insights into the shared history of Suriname and the Netherlands. Visitors can also contribute their own photographs in a separate section.
