Digital meets Culture

Hybrid event, April 9-10

Europeana Aggregators Forum 2025

The Europeana Aggregators Forum is the gathering where twice a year the community of Europeana most trusted partners meets to review strategies and collaborations, and make plans for the future. All the aggregators work with cultural heritage institutions to gather authentic, trustworthy and robust cultural data and make it accessible through Europeana. Through the Europeana Aggregators Forum, aggregators work to exchange the knowledge and best practice that support the digital transformation of cultural heritage institutions.

This year the Forum will take place both online and onsite on the 9th and 10th of April.

PhD course 15-17 September 2025, Bornholm, Denmark

TOURISM IMPACTS: TRANSFORMATIVE POWERS AND POTENTIAL

On 17th – 19th September 2025 the Centre for Regional and Tourism Research (CRT) on the island of Bornholm will host the Nordic Symposium 2025 under the theme “The transformative power and potential of tourism”.

In conjunction with the Symposium, Aalborg University organises a PhD course whose aim is to strengthen the participants’ knowledge about key perspectives and theories about the transformative potentials of tourism as a social activity, and the methods through which the impact of touristic practices can be illuminated.

The impact of tourism has been central for public debates about overtourism and sustainability in recent years, and these concerns are also increasingly reflected in scholarly efforts, including many PhD projects. Research into the negative and positive impacts of tourism as a social activity is being conducted under numerous headings –e.g. regenerative tourism, mindful tourism, etc. – and this course will tap into this field of academic endeavor.

The course focuses on the keywords ‘impacts’ and ‘transformation’ in two, often connected, ways:

in relation to regeneration of places that frame and contain touristic activities and experiences, with a focus on how tourism can push development in new and strategic directions that correspond with and support local development visions and ambitions
as a process of personal learning and development when traveling and experiencing places as a tourist, with a focus on co-creating engaging, memorable and eye-opening experiences that potentially can change mindsets and behavior

The theme is important both in tourism research and, indeed, for local communities and tourist destinations, where tourism is often used as a means to work towards sustainable goals and outcomes by regenerating, revitalizing, and re-strategizing the communities. To succeed with this, rethinking of actions and practices in all sectors and industries in society, including tourism, is required in order to ensure that outcomes are not only sustainable in the broadest sense of the word, but also are experienced as desirable and beneficial from the perspective of both visitors and local citizens.

The course begins Monday 15 September 9:00 and ends Wednesday 17 September at noon, after which participants are encouraged to join the 33rdSymposium in order to continue discussions about tourism, societal impact and transformative potentials.

Aalborg University is the coordinator of CROCUS project funded by the EU under the Horizon Europe programme, which participates in the Network of Common Interest of the SECreTour projects.

Follow SECreTour online also on the SECreTour project’s website.

In collaboration with Q42, Fabrique design agency and consultancy collective Eidra

Rijksmuseum launches Collectie Online – the new online collections platform

img. courtesy of Rijksmuseum’s website

After four years of planning, considering, building, refining, testing, releasing, reconsidering, fretting, cropping, finetuning and re-cropping, Rijksmuseum launched Collectie Online—the successor to the Rijksmuseum’s ground-breaking Rijksstudio collections platform.

Here are some of the possibilities the platform offers:

Allow the viewer to look at zoomable high versions of all the objects the museum’s allowed to publish
Download all the images in high resolution for free
Allow the viewer to make collection of their favourite objects
Search through all the artworks, publications and user sets simoltaneously
Intant access to museum stories, catalogues and recommended works for further exploration
Linked data to build up fine-tuned search queries to get at just the objects needed
Browse through the collection with thousands of pages highlighting objects fitting that category
Carefully curated pages to help the viewer find their way in the collection
Offer questions to the viewer and suggest them artworks that match your mood, vibe, or style
The viewer can decide what works should hang in the Gallery of Honour
Comparative study of the works in the collection

Visit and start browsing at: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection

14 May 2025, online and in Brussels

Preserving Digital Foundations with eArchiving – shaping Europe’s digital future

Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licenses bysolotravel_photalkgraphy on Unsplash

Organized by eArchiving Initiative funded under DIGITAL, this year’s event will focus on two main topics, namely database preservation and the EUDI electronic archiving trust service.

The morning session of this event will consider the state of the art in database preservation. Database preservation involves a series of practices and strategies to ensure that data remains usable and intact over time despite technological changes and potential data degradation. There will be presentations to explore this topic from members of the DILCIS Board who maintain SIARD specification (Software Independent Archiving of Relational Databases) and from members of the Database Archiving Working Group. These will be complemented by presentations of use cases.

The afternoon session will focus on the new trust service in the EUDI based on the eIDAS: the electronic archiving trust service. The EUDI Regulation aims to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market and the provision of trust services used across the European Union. Different stakeholders will present their views on the impact of this new trust service. The event will conclude with a reflection on how the eArchiving Initiative has incorporated the outcomes of the 2024 Brussels event and the plans for the coming year.

The event is open to anyone and is free of charge. Register and get more info at this link.

Climate change, the influence on cultural heritage and its impact

“Innovation through Heritage: Resilience in Times of Climate Change” Conference dealing with relevant topics for EUreka3D-XR

With EUreka3D-XR keeping up the work of EUreka3D and embracing its values, the awareness on climate change and its impact on the Cultural Heritage sector is still in the project’s priorities.

As an important event to follow closely about this matter, “Innovation through Heritage: Resilience in Times of Climate Change” International Conference will explore how national and European research and funding policies can unite to make cultural heritage resilient in the face of climate change.

Organized by the Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe (ARCHE) and hosted by Time Machine Organization, the conference will discuss various relevant themes that the EUreka3D-XR pays close attention to, about the impact of climate change on the environment and how the cultural heritage sector is addressing its challenges.

Read more about the Conference at this link.

3-5 March (13:00 -12:00 CET), online and Former Austrian Länderbank and Museum of Applied Art in Vienna

ARCHE Conference “Innovation through Heritage: Resilience in Times of Climate Change”

In a rapidly evolving world where technological advancements and environmental challenges continually reshape society, preserving and leveraging cultural heritage as a resource for research, societal benefit, and economic growth is more vital than ever.

The Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe (ARCHE) invites you to join the “Innovation through Heritage: Resilience in Times of Climate Change” International Conference, hosted by the Time Machine Organisation (TMO), where it’ll be possible explore how national and European research and funding policies can unite to make cultural heritage resilient in the face of climate change. This event marks a significant step forward as the ARCHE consortium works toward establishing a European Partnership Framework — a masterplan enabling Member States and the European Commission to jointly support innovative initiatives aimed at strengthening cultural heritage resilience.

“Innovation through Heritage” brings together policymakers, thought leaders, innovators, and stakeholders from across Europe to shape the future of cultural heritage. With a focus on critical themes such as digitization, technology, climate adaptation, and resilience, this conference provides a unique platform to collaborate and define a sustainable roadmap for cultural heritage research and innovation, shaping its transformative potential for 2040 and beyond.

Read more at this link.

Pisa and online, 27 February 2025

EUreka3D-XR kick-off meeting and public workshop

EUreka3D-XR – European Union’s REKonstructed content in 3D to produce XR experiences is the continuation project of EUreka3D, funded by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union, to develop innovative re-use scenarios and tools that enable the creation of extended reality (XR) applications, through expanding the features and services already developed and tested in the EUreka3D project. EUreka3D-XR kickoff event will take place on 26-27 February 2025 at Museo della Grafica, Pisa (Italy), hosted by project coordinator Photoconsortium. The first day is fully dedicated to project partners and the HaDEA officers, to review the workplan and set the next milestones and activities to be achieved in the first months of the project.

On the second day, 27th February, a public workshop in hybrid format will present the project and in particular the three use cases that make use of the project’s tool to create XR experiences in France, Spain and Cyprus. The main research area of the new action in EUreka3D-XR is in facts focused on transforming cultural contents such 2D, 3D, video, texts, maps, stories into compelling narratives and extended reality scenarios, and to deliver said scenarios to the common European data space for cultural heritage, to enrich the corpus of open access digital cultural contents online and to inspire others in experimenting new technologies.

Recordings of the workshop will be available after the event.

AGENDA 27th February 2025, h. 11,00 – 12,30 CET

11.00 Welcome message, by Alessandro Tosi, Director of Museo della Grafica

11.10 Introduction and scope of the workshop, by Antonella Fresa, Photoconsortium, EUreka3D-XR Project Coordinator

11.20 The virtual visualisation of the middle-ages walls of the city of Girona, by David Iglesias Franch, CRDI Ajuntament de Girona

11.40 The XR narrative of archaeological excavations in process in the Celtic city of Bibracte, by Vincent Guichard, BIBRACTE EPCC

12.00 The creation of a new life of Saint Neophytos Englystra in Cyprus in the virtual space, by Marinos Ioannides, Cyprus University of Technology

12.20 Q&A

12.30 End of the meeting

Invito Pisa (PDF 600 KB)

From 13th to 14th May, online

Digital Storytelling Festival 2025- an event by Europeana

The Digital Storytelling Festival is a yearly event, organized by Europeana. It aims to encourage cultural heritage professionals, educators, creatives, and students from Europe and beyond to boost their storytelling skills and tell stories exploring culture, hoping to inspire participants to create connections between art, culture and history and the contemporary world.

The event this year will take place on May 13 and 14. Be the first to register at this link.

The webinar will take place on February 26, from 3PM to 4PM

Online Creative Residency 2025 – Information Session by Europeana

The Online Creative Residency, as part of the Digital Storytelling Festival ran by Europeana, brings students and new professionals who want to gain storytelling skills in a professional setting together with experts. Working with these experts, residency participants develop stories with cultural heritage in different digital formats.

During the webinar last year’s Creative Online Residency will be showcased, and the application process for this year will be launched.

Get your tickets at this link.

Exhibition in Pescia (Italy), 8 Febrary to 2 June 2025

Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto 1923. Storia di un’edizione

img. EUreka3D project / Museo della Carta

The Museo della Carta in Pescia holds a rich heritage of paper goods consisting of watermarked paper moulds, watermark waxes, punches, watermarked metal sheets, about 7,000 pieces, witnessing the history of paper manufacturing in Tuscany.

One of the items digitized and shared to Europeana in the context of EUreka3D project is a paper mould produced in 1923. It features the watermark with a stylized anchor, flanked at the bottom by the letters “E” and “S”. These are the initials of Ettore Serra (1890-1980), poet, critic, antiquarian, multifaceted and cosmopolitan intellectual, and most of all founder of the publishing house Stamperia Apuana, which published the second and expanded edition of Giuseppe Ungaretti’s collection of poems Il Porto Sepolto printed on a high quality paper specially manufactured by the Magnani Paper Mill in Pescia, using the paper mould currently preserved at the Museo della Carta, and digitized in 3D for EUreka3D project.

The 3D digitization of this paper mould supported in the Museum additional research about the story of the object itself and of this publication of Il Porto Sepolto. As a direct outcome of this research, an exhibition and catalogue was derived, showcasing the original model, the various documents and stories that surrounded it and the book published by Ettore Serra, and of course the 3D model itself digited in the EUreka3D project. The exhibition Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto 1923. Storia di un’edizione opens on 8th February until 2 June 2025 and is part of a series of exhibitions dedicated to artworks, events and important figures in the local history of 1900.

Website: https://museodellacarta.org/en