SustainAV: Sustainable Archives for Future Creation

Audiovisual collections are a vital resource for creative reuse, research, and cultural memory. But managing these collections sustainably requires new approaches — especially as digitisation, artificial intelligence, and large-scale data processing bring increasing environmental costs.

The SustainAV project explores how film heritage institutions and cultural organisations can engage with digital and AI technologies in ways that are future-proof and ecologically responsible. In collaboration with partners including Eye Filmmuseum and creative agency Norday, the project maps the full lifecycle of audiovisual archives: from technological development and preservation to creative reuse.

The project examines:

• Which AI applications are desirable, feasible, and responsible within archives
• How institutions can address the energy demands of large AI models
• What creative reuse practices require from digital archive infrastructures
• And how new ‘generous’ interfaces can offer access beyond traditional search fields

SustainAV brings together insights from archival science, sustainability, and design. Its goal is to develop a roadmap for the sustainable audiovisual archive of the future.

€175,000 will be used as a PPP program grant.