The purpose of this special feature is to introduce research areas that consciously present their attitudes toward understanding "others" using digital archive and digital data. So far, they have not been discussed head-on at Japan Society for Digital Archive. However, looking at other fields, people such as anthropologists, sociologists, and artists who are trying to "artistically" express the anthropological interest of understanding "others" have accumulated research. Some people try to express their understanding of human activities in the east and west in a multidimensional way through the digital format. Another people try to re-express the existing digital data that they have read and analyzed in a form that they can sympathize with. In this special issue, as practical examples of such research, we will take up ‘The Info-Forum Museum’ Project of the National Museum of Ethnology and the attempts of four people.

In this paper, I would like to discuss the nature of a platform for the publication of creative research results for the future of the humanities, based on my own experience of creating such for visual anthropology research. While looking at the recent trend of visual anthropology, which is the proximity and exchange between anthropology and art, I would like to report the purpose and activities of the research group entitled Anthro-Film Llaboratory, which I was involved in establishing, as well as TRAJECTORIA, an international online journal published by the National Museum of Ethnology, where I work.

In general, data visualized using computer programs etc. facilitates objective analysis of users, but it is inevitable that details of individual experiences of people and emotional changes are difficult to observe. On the other hand, there are attempts to complement each other and derive "understanding and empathy" by combining data visualization and individual interview in art and documentary. In this paper, I will introduce art projects called "Some Questions about Nuclear" and "Tokyo Air Raid Oral History Map" that I have been involved in, and discuss the possibility of complex media by data visualization and individual interview.

Since 2012, I have been working with Japanese artists, curators and diverse participants on the use of EC Film, an academic video archive constructed in Germany in the 1950s-80s. In the first part of this article, we will present a series of screenings/lectures that combine EC Film, various locations, real materials and guest speakers with multiple perspectives, as well as the "Fieldwork in Films" exhibition held in Tokyo in 2019. In the second part, we will focus on the attempt to 're-enact’ music and performing arts images in EC film, and consider the ways in which we, living in the present day, can recombine and 'pass on' visual archives that capture the experiences of 'distant others'.

Records of "I" left by someone. AHA!, a project to create an archive focusing on the value of such records, was asked to plan an exhibition to be held in Sendai City on the tenth anniversary of the earthquake. In the process of its preparation, the author met Kaori (pseudonym), who lives in the coastal area of the city. She had been keeping a diary of her childcare since June 11, 2010, the day she gave birth for the first time. This author recaptures the experience of a catastrophe, once in 1,000 years, from the records and memories of one person's childcare. How was the seemingly reckless exhibition "I Remember" organized? By tracing the process from the conception of this exhibition to its opening, the author questions the nature of memorial, the inheritance of memory, and forgetting.

Under the COVID-19 situation, museum activities on the internet have boosted up in amounts of contents and in the range of diversity. Digital Archives are also promoted and utilized for publicizing of storage collections, research papers, in many museums. In this paper, digital archiving of educational activities of museums were focused, describing the case of Osaka Museum of Natural history as an example. The forms of streaming are selected by types of education activities for better communication, and we found some advantages and limitations for online educations. Some of the limitation can be improved by additional activities. The benefits of contents archiving of museum educational movies are also discussed.

This paper examines the impact of digital archives on the remembrance of Japanese Canadians through the analysis of the "Landscapes of Injustice (LoI)" archive, which focuses on Japanese Canadian dispossession. The LoI archive has three aspects: academic materials, the collective memory of Japanese Canadian, and survivors' familial memory. An analysis of articles written by Japanese Canadian users showed that materials on LoI archive are important to them as family histories. Japanese Canadian users emphasize the injustice of bureaucracy and their family's past and integrate them into their family memories by associating the documents to their emotions. This understanding suggests the possibility that digital archives can present larger groups' stories and personal memories without conflict.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the publication status of open data on cultural properties in Japan and to clarify the related issues. According to the results of our survey, it was found that the number of local governments that have released datasets that are consistent with the recommended format is quite limited, and there is a problem with reusability. In order to increase the number of local governments that publish open data on cultural properties in accordance with the recommended format, it is necessary to establish a mechanism for creating datasets that are easier to understand and more suitable for cultural properties.