The Vanuatu Cultural Centre (in Bislama Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta[1] or "VKS"), founded in 1959[2], is the national cultural centre of Vanuatu. It is located in Port Vila.[3] Since 2007, its director is Marcellin Abong.[4]
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Describing itself as "an organisation that works to record and promote the diverse cultures" of Vanuatu, it is an umbrella organisation which includes the National Museum of Vanuatu, the Vanuatu Cultural and Historical Site Survey, the National Library and the National Film and Sound Unit.[5] Its aim is to record and promote the traditional indigenous cultures of Vanuatu in their various aspects -from sand drawing to music, land diving, other "customary practices" and "indigenous knowledge"-, but also the country's "contemporary arts and music".[6]
Among its projects is the Oral Traditions Collection Project, started in 1976, which has been described as "without doubt, the Pacific's most successful grassroots cultural documentation program".[7]
The Centre produces radio programmes and videos aimed at cultural promotion, preservation or revival. As of 1996, the Centre's collection contained "approximately 2500 hours of audio tape, 2300 hours of video tape, twenty-three hours of 16-millimetre film footage, thirty hours of 8-millimetre film footage, 3000 early (up to 1950s) black-and-white photographs, and around 4000 colour slides, colour negatives and black-and-white negatives". Access to some of this material is restricted, being tabu. Some material may be accessed only by men, some only by women, and some only by members of particular indigenous cultural groups.[8]