Digital meets Culture

Banská Bystrica, 6-7 June 2024

All the partners’ representatives meet on 6-7 June 2024 in Banská Bystrica for the SECreTour kick-off meeting, hosted by Matej Bell University, partner of the project.

The city of Banská Bystrica is located in Central Slovakia and the first written reference is from 1255.

The development of the city was mostly related to the mining of copper ores, which is the cultural heritage explored in the SECreTour pilot of Central Slovakia.

Špania Dolina, © Promoter srl 2024 (Antonella Fresa)

In addition to the pilot of Central Slovakia, SECreTour includes seven more pilots in France, Spain, Albania, Ireland, Hungary, Slovenia and Switzerland.

https://secretourproject.eu/pilots

The eight pilots constitute the central pillar of the project, together with focused research activities in the domain of: Heritage communities, social innovation and sustainable tourism practices in rural areas, Innovative and alternative business models and digital tools in rural and remote tourism destinations, Cooperation, networking, macro-regions, cross-border. The critical collection of good practices, exploitation planning, outreach and coordination of the project complement the workplan.

https://secretourproject.eu/structure

The eight pilots and the eight work packages of SECreTour were thoroughly reviewed and discussed among the partners, to highlight the main driving routes that the project is planning to follow in the coming years.

Sustainable, Engaging and Creative Tourism as a driver for a better future in rural and remote areas

SECreTour – a new Horizon Europe research and innovation project on cultural tourism

SECreTour is the acronym of the project titles “Sustainable, Engaging and Creative Tourism as a driver for a better future in rural and remote areas”.

SECreTour is a new research and innovation action started on 1/3/2024, under the funding of the Horizon Europe programma of the EU.

The project lasts 3 years, focusing on cultural tourism in the European peripheries.

Tourism is conceived in SECreTour as a tool to complement and diversify the income of the territories, a way of giving visibility and recognition to rural areas and their inhabitants, a mean to promote the installation and the generation of services that are beneficial both for the local communities and for the visitors. In this light, SECreTour will primarily focus on the local communities’ needs, perceptions and expectations.

Tourism is more than travelling and consuming and it has a great potential for sustainable development when it focuses on culture, nature, knowledge, and experiences. By developing a fair, creative and sustainable tourism approach together with the heritage communities, the SECreTour consortium will assess different local contexts, needs and types of cultural heritage.

Specific goals are taken into account by the project while testing and experimenting new forms of tourism development, namely: to avoid touristification, to promote alternative business models, to enable governance and citizen engagement not only for touristic-economic planning, but also for community building and cultural heritage management and protection.

Through a series of pilot cases, the project aims to demonstrate how cultural heritage can be used as a real driver for sustainable and fair development, promoting at the same time its conservation. Pilots have been carefully chosen to represent a full range of European territories, communities and heritage, including not only rural and agrarian landscapes, but also memory places of local identities, minorities, conflictive dark heritage. The pilots represent the focus for every part of the research as they enable to test general ideas and observations in local detail and in specific governance contexts, and to facilitate effective communication, cooperation and problem-solving through an interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral approach.

The SECreTour adventure has just started, stay tuned and follow us!

Šibenik (Croatia) from 25 to 27 September 2024

IN SITU Conference

IN SITU is a four-year project that combines research and experimental actions to advance the innovation-related practices, capacities, and potentials of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) based in non-urban and rural areas of the EU.

The project aims to better understand their forms, processes, and governance needs and to advance the ability of non-urban and rural CCIs to act as drivers of innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability. Ultimately, the aim is to contribute to a more informed and sustainable future for practitioners in cultural and creative industries based in non-urban and rural areas.

This first international conference of the IN SITU project will explore the transformative power of innovative approaches of cultural and creative agents in forging more equitable and sustainable communities beyond urban centres.

The deadline for submitting proposals is 8 July 2024 at 23h59 CET.

More information on the Conference themes, programme, and fees are available at https://insituculture.eu/croatia-2024/conference-horizons-of-sustainability/

Complesso Monumentale San Micheletto di Lucca, 19 June 2024

San Pellegrino in Alpe: place of pilgrimages and innovation for cultural tourism

After three years of scientific research and activities in the area, the INCULTUM project, funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union and created with the aim of using sustainable tourism models to relaunch the social fabric of peripheral and marginal regions of Europe, has concluded.

In operation since 2021, the project has created ten pilot cases in nine states on the continent, among which the Emilia-Garfagna village of San Pellegrino in Alpe stands out.

This last case study, coordinated and managed by the University of Pisa in collaboration with the Campus Foundation of Lucca, was the subject of the conversation of the CISCuP (Centro Internazionale di Studi sulle Culture del Pellegrinaggio), which for the occasion organized a dedicated event with the staging of the theatrical show “A priest, two saints, a border and 4000 unique pieces”, represented by the actress Elisabetta Salvatori. The performance was created within INCULTUM: an accurate historical journey focused on the vicissitudes that led to the birth of the local museum and the characters from the village’s past, who still live today through the museumexhibition and its objects.

organized by Heritage Malta and the Norwegian Museum Stavanger, the conference centers on 3D digitization methods for documenting the impacts of climate change and ocean quality on maritime cultural heritage.

EUreka3D, TwinIt! and Lambousa boat presented at the “Clean Oceans and Mapping our Seas” conference

Human activity has irrevocably impacted our oceans, posing significant threats to both marine ecosystems and cultural heritage. The conference “Clean Oceans and Mapping our Seas” seeks to address these pressing issues by bringing together experts, stakeholders, and enthusiasts to explore innovative digital solutions and strategies that can be used to aid the documentation and interpretation of these issues on cultural heritage.

The conference aims are to:

Raise awareness about the interconnection between clean oceans and the preservation of maritime cultural heritage.
Showcase advancements in digitization technologies for documenting underwater cultural heritage.
Foster collaboration and knowledge exchange among stakeholders, including museums, research institutions, and government agencies

In addition, the conference examined the vital link between tourism and cultural heritage sustainability, demonstrating how digital preservation can drive tourism while ensuring the longevity and authenticity of cultural sites for future generations.

Full Programme: https://maltamaritimemuseum.mt/cleanoceans/

EUreka3D project was part in this hybrid conference event on 19 June 2024, in the context of the session “Traditional Boat Digitization: Case Studies from Cyprus, Malta, and Norway”, where Marinos Ioannides, Director of the Digital Heritage Research Lab at Cyprus University of Technology, presented outcomes and stories behind the 3D digitisation project that created a fully documented memory twin of the traditional Lambousa boat, a cultural monument of Cyprus heritage.

The Lambousa boat is one of the high quality records produced in the context of EUreka3D project, also offered as open access resource into Europeana as part of the TwinIt! campaign, successfully concluded and celebrated in Brussels in May 2024. This important effort on creating and promoting 3D digitization of European heritage was also presented in the conference by Valentine Charles, Data Services Director at Europeana Foundation.

Abu Dhabi, December 10-12, 2024

Heritage Middle East 2024

Heritage Middle East 2024

The 2nd Heritage Middle East International Exhibition and Conference for Museum and Librarianship Technologies, Restoration, Archaeology, and Cultural Tourism is going to arrive in Abu Dhabi.

The event will take place between December 10-12, 2024, at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center.

Heritage Middle East will be an international meeting point aimed at being the market for actors in the global museology sector. It will bring fresh blood to the sector by organizing side events such as conferences where leading museologists, museum designers, architects, art historians, conservators, and other art professionals come together. It will be a destination where all artistic and cultural activities of the Arab world are planned and future projects are discussed.

It is an international project that plans to host more than 62 companies and institutions, and around 2,857 visitors. Heritage Middle East offers its exhibitors an unparalleled opportunity to showcase their expertise and products to a diverse global audience. Book your stand here.

by Guillaume Reich and Agathe Le Riche

Bibracte exploits the potential of 3D digitisation – new blogpost on Europeana

As part of the EUreka3D project, a blogpost authored by Guillaume Reich (Bibracte) was recently published on Europeana.

The blog focuses on the process of digitisation 400 archaeological artefacts in 3D as part of the Eureka3D project, exposing their objectives, challenges and their tools.

Read the blogpost here.

EUreka3D project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

30th Spetember - 4th October, Lecce (Italy)

EGI Annual Conference 2024

At the annual EGI conference, international scientific communities, computing and service providers, European projects, security experts, community managers, and policy makers gather to take research and innovation in data-intensive processing and analytics forward, in a safe and open environment with room for in-depth discussion, new insights and networking.

For this edition of the conference, EGI is closely collaborating with Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), a leading research center focused on understanding the interaction between climate change and society.

EGI2024 will take place in the Hilton Garden Inn, Lecce (Italy), from the 30th of September to the 4th of October 2024.

Follow this link to learn more and register.

a collaboration was established for knowledge exchange and capacity building, reinforcing education in the field of the Humanities

EUreka3D and ARTEST project – coordination meeting

In the context of the third project plenary and demo event in Limassol on 29/5/2024, EUreka3D project and ARTEST Erasmus+ project established a collaboration in a coordination meeting, which was focused on knowledge exchange and capacity building about 3D digitization supporting education in Social Sciences and Humanities.

The delegation of the ARTEST project included representatives from five EU members state institutions and five universities from Mongolia:

University of Catania (UNICT) IT
University of Cologne (UoC) DE
University of the Peloponnese (UOP) GR
Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, musée des Arts et Métiers FR
International Hellenic University (IHU) GR
Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST) MN
National University of Mongolia (NUM) MN
University of the Humanities (UH) MN
Mongolian National University of Arts and Culture (MNUAC) MN
Otgontenger University (OTU) MN

Among the presentations during the coordination meeting, after the welcome and introduction to the event by Marinos Ioannides (Cyprus University of Technology), an overview of EUreka3D was provided by Antonella Fresa, project coordinator, (Photoconsortium), following by a presentation of the Europeana initiative and the data space for cultural heritage by Jolan Wuytz (Europeana Foundation) and Sofie Taes (Europeana Network Association). Interesting overviews and discussions about the work ongoing in ARTEST and a brainstorm discussion about future collaborations complemented the coordination meeting.

[Show as slideshow]

the project was part in panel session “Innovative media”, with presentation by Marinos Ioannides (CUT)

EUreka3D at the Europeana Digital Storytelling Festival 2024

Every year, the Europeana Digital Storytelling Festival is the international event that encourages cultural heritage professionals, educators, creatives, and students from Europe and beyond to boost their storytelling skills and tell stories exploring culture.

EUreka3D project was part in this online event on 22 May 2024, in the context of the panel session “Innovative media”, where Marinos Ioannides, Director of the Digital Heritage Research Lab at Cyprus University of Technology, presented outcomes and stories behind the 3D digitised objects and sites within the context of EUreka3D.