Utaina

In Budget 2020, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision was allocated funding to support the digital preservation of Crown-owned audiovisual heritage material. This included video and sound tapes and some magnetic sound on film, all of which physically deteriorate over time. Without digital preservation, over 95 percent of at-risk content could have been lost in less than a decade. In addition, the playback technology for these formats is on the verge of obsolescence. There was a limited window to ensure that these taonga were preserved for future generations.

Crown-owned at-risk audiovisual material is cared for by Ngā Taonga, the National Library of New Zealand – Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, and Archives New Zealand – Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga. The majority is in the TVNZ Collection, which Ngā Taonga manages.

International vendor Memnon was selected to carry out the preservation work and set up a digitisation facility at Avalon Studios, Lower Hutt. Memnon has almost 20 years’ experience in the large-scale digitisation of audio and video assets for libraries, universities, broadcasters, museums and government organisations around the world.

An official launch celebration was held for the Utaina project in Wellington on 17 November 2022. Attendees included then Minister of Internal Affairs Hon Jan Tinetti, then Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Hon Kiritapu Allan, Memnon CEO Heidi Shakespeare, and our peers at the National Library of New Zealand and Archives New Zealand.

The official closing celebration was held in Wellington on 16 October 2025. In attendance were project kaimahi and special guests including Hon Paul Goldsmith, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, and Hon Brooke Van Velden, Minister of Internal Affairs.

The name Utaina translates to ‘load the precious freight on board’. It was a catch phrase of Sir Apirana Ngata when advocating for the recording and preservation of Māori language and heritage. As this project is aspiring to ‘load on board’ precious audiovisual heritage so that it can be preserved for future generations, it is a very appropriate name.