From paper to music ...
The Colophon Association (non-profit association under Belgian law) was established in 1994. Since then, it has developed various tools to promote awareness and give information on cooperation, development, education and solidarity in general. Active primarily in paper publishing. It produced as part of a partnership of over ten years with development NGOs, [amongst others] a collection of works, analyses and debate logs.
... music listening to the world
Under its label ‘Colophon Records’,active since 1998, the Association has also developed an experimental publishing and distribution project for authentic traditional music: the “Collection of popular music of the World” (Collection de musiques populaires du monde). By the attention it gives to cultural expressions, this innovative project wants to break with the vision in development circles of a humanitarian discourse prone to misery. A way to promote a more sensitive approach to their cultural identities - such as music -, without adapting them or distorting them to be more western and commercial and to participate, in cultural terms, to this new movement in favor of fairer trade between North and South.
The collection aims to reveal to the public, the amazing musical richness of some generally economically disadvantaged and / or culturally threatened populations. The act of publishing, is also active participation in the safeguarding of these intangible heritages rights, weakened by economic imbalances and brutal globalization. A way to stay tuned to the world and not to forget - beyond the festive interlude and the popularity of multiculturalism - the socio-economic and cultural realities in which these songs are usually expressed.
The association is committed to the legal recognition and protection of intangible heritage rights and is concretely involved in the application of a copyright on the collective heritage it publishes under its label.
Finally, to develop editorial projects, Colophon favors the principle of partnership with other development organizations, associations or public / private institutions. Colophon was able, several times, to the support and collaboration of the Belgian Ministry of Development Cooperation, the Jeunesses Musicales and the Library of the French Community of Belgium (La Médiathèque).