Digital meets Culture

the important biannual gathering of experts about (digital) imagery and management of photographic heritage collections

WEAVE goes to Image and Research conference

img: Eiffel bridge in Girona, photo CRDI / Ajuntament de Girona, Public Domain.

Under coordination of WEAVE partners KU Leuven and Photoconsortium, a paper was submitted for the upcoming Image and Research conference in Girona (16-18 November 2022), where it was presented by Photoconsortium’s vicepresident Antonella Fresa.

The Image and Research Conference (Antoni Varés Conference) has been held in the city of Girona since 1990. This event brings together every two years experts and the public interested in debating, reflecting and teaching different aspects related to the management of photographic and audiovisual heritage.

The paper featuring WEAVE and its outcomes is entitled “Metadata generation for intangible heritage: the role of crowdsourcing and AI to address bias risk“, and it presents lessons learned from work on metadata enrichment in cultural heritage and archival collections, using both Artificial Intelligence as well as crowdsourcing in a complementary strategy.

Download Presentation (PDF, 2 Mb)

While AI approaches are unavoidable to be able to improve metadata at a sufficient scale, crowdsourcing through annotation tools proves crucial to validate the obtained results.

More importantly, involving stakeholders and representative organisations in this process is important as well as necessary to cope with contextual bias and misrepresentation, for which automated mappings cannot easily be implemented. To this regard, the WEAVE project demonstrates best practice approaches that were tested and validated during the project.

Metadata generation for intangible heritage: the role of crowdsourcing and AI to address bias risk

co-authored by Valentina Bachi (Photoconsortium), Rosa Cisneros (Coventry University), Antonella Fresa (Photoconsortium), Allison Kupietzky (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem), Alexandru Stan (IN2 Digital Innovations) and Frederik Truyen (KU Leuven).

In addition to this paper about metadata and communities representation in cultural heritage, a presentation of the major 3D digitization task performed by WEAVE partner CRDI was delivered by Marc Hernandez of La Tempesta, the specialized technology partner of CRDI, who explored challenges and solution for complex 3D digitization of daguerreotypes with photogrammetry techniques.

This blog is part of WEAVE – Widen European Access to cultural communities Via Europeana: a project funded by the European Commission under the Connecting Europe Facilities (CEF) aimed at developing a framework to link the tangible and intangible heritage of cultural communities.

The importance of developing a new understanding on the value of cultural heritage

ILUCIDARE Policy recommendations to promote heritage as a source for innovation and international relations

ILUCIDARE, EU-funded H2020 project aimed at establishing an international network that promotes heritage as a resource for innovation and in international relations, has just published its policy recommendations resulting from the project’s activities.

Evidence gathered by ILUCIDARE during its activities shows how heritage resources are important drivers for innovation and international relations, stimulating a variety of impacts both locally and internationally.

Building on the ILUCIDARE learnings, the document includes proposals to better understand the value of heritage beyond its cultural value with respect to its contribution to (social) innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation, education or international cooperation and intends to provide recommendations on how policy should be framed to make the most of heritage to support innovation, international relations and contribute to a greener, more inclusive and sustainable future. More specifically, these policy recommendations aim:

To show the need to strengthen and improve heritage policy making to further unleash the potential of cultural heritage to contribute to innovation and international relations;
To help policy makers understand the value of heritage investment;
To guide future policy action with concrete measures addressing governance, legal and funding issues;
To empower heritage stakeholders to influence policy making and better develop heritage-led innovation and heritage-led international relations projects.

The recommendations can be downloaded at https://ilucidare.eu/resources/database/ilucidare-policy-recommendations

understanding context and challenges for innovatives approaches in tourism to achieve positive social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts.

INCULTUM Policy Brief on Sustainable Tourism

One of the research areas of INCULTUM project focuses on developing policy recommendations that supports innovative and participative approaches to a community-led and sustainable tourism development in rural or marginal territories.

The activity on policies overall is led by experts from Matej Bel University, with important tasks coordinated by cultural managers and researchers at Bibracte.

The first Policy Brief was released in September 2022.

This document formulates recommendations for the orientation of future research programmes in the field of cultural tourism, rural heritage management and sustainable development of peripheral territories. It develops a transdisciplinary approach, combining socio-economic analysis and drawing on the achievements of the literature on tourism development and territorial management. It endeavours to articulate the diversity of the
axes explored by the partners and the various aspects of the problem. This version 1 of the policy brief has been produced at the end of the first year of INCULTUM’s activity and the consortium members intend to publish a revised version at the end of the project in 2024.

Read the Policy Brief (PDF)

16 September 2022, Girona

UNCHARTED at WEAVE final conference

WEAVE – Widen European Access to cultural communities Via Europeana is a 2-years project funded by the CEF Programme of the EU.

Member of the UNCHARTED community since 2021, it supports Europeana about widen European access to intangible cultural heritage and the heritage of minority cultural communities.

Last 16 September its final conference “Weaving digital culture: tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the digital transformation” took place in Girona to explore the connections between tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the process of digital transformation of cultural heritage organisations.

Antonella Fresa, director at Promoter and technical coordinator of UNCHARTED, attended the event as speaker with the presentation “Cultural values, identities, participation and local communities” during which she presented the UNCHARTED project.

Conference details, full video of the event and presentations are available at https://weave-culture.eu/conference/

discover today the beautiful virtual exhibition published by WEAVE team in Europeana

The Renaissance of Romani Re-presentation

img. (cropped): Back To The Future! Safe European Home 1938, Damian Le Bas, Kai Dikhas Foundation / ERIAC, In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted.

This exhibition, jointly curated by WEAVE Editorial Team with invaluable contribution by guest author Dr Adrian R Marsh and an afterword by Imogen Bright Moon, follows a discovery path from misrepresentation to renaissance of Romani arts and heritage, also exploring the histories of Roma communities and opening a window to their contemporary artistic expressions.

View the exhibition on Europeana HERE >>>

Read the Europeana post about the Roma representation in the cultural heritage sector HERE >>>

'Strength, balance, courage and good judgement' is the motto of the human towers or 'castells' typical of Catalonia, Spain.

WEAVE blogpost: Castellers, Catalonia’s human towers

Diada castellera de la festa major de la Mercè a Barcelona. Actuació de les colles convidades a la plaça de Sant Jaume. Els Castellers de Vilafranca carregant un 3 de 9 amb folre. S’observa l’enxaneta fent l’aleta.

img: Festa de la Mercè a Barcelona di Duran Fígols, Oriol – CRDI / Girona City Council – CC BY-NC-ND.

Castells are human constructions, six to ten people high, that can occasionally be spotted in cities and town squares in Catalonia. Having originated at the end of the 18th century in the Camp de Tarragona area, they have spread all across the region – and beyond.

Read the blog published by the WEAVE project editorial team in Europeana to discover this extraordinary practice that serves as a prime example of intangible cultural heritage.
HERE

Also, you can learn more about this practice and its meaning in the Catalan community from the vivid voices of Castells’ teams in this documentary, realized by CRDI in the context of WEAVE project:

28-30 September 2022, hybrid conference

Europeana 2022: Making digital culture count

From 28 to 30 September the annual Europeana conference will take place in a hybrid format: online and on-site at the KB, National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague.

It will be a three-day event to learn, explore and deepen various aspects of digital cultural heritage:

Wednesday 28 September, Making digital culture count: perspectives and provocations on the data space for digital cultural heritage: to explore the data space in practice.
Thursday 29 September, Making digital culture count – stories, culture and society: how storytelling, cultural and digital heritage come together to connect institutions with the public and with trends and issues of today.
Friday 30 September, Making digital culture count – technology matters: how technology paves the way for digital inclusion and the preservation of cultural heritage.

In the afternoon there will be presentations, workshops and activities: the over 30 sessions of Europena 2022 have been co-created with cultural heritage professionals who responded to the call for proposals. There will be two hybrid sessions which participants can join both on-site and online, and online only talks on a diverse range of topics.

The full programme of Europeana 2022 is available at https://pro.europeana.eu/page/conference#

Pisa (Italy), 23 September - 10 October 2022

The 80s in 80 shots – photographic exhibition

On Friday 23 September at the Museo della Grafica of Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa, the exhibition “The 80s in 80 shots” will be inaugurated, and will be on display until 10 October 2022.

This is a collection of 20 photographic prints made by the artist and sinologist Andrea Cavazzuti, combined with 60 digitized photographs (from original diapositives) found in the albums of families emigrated from China to Italy in the 1980s.

From the concept developed by association EOE, the exhibition is organized under the patronage of the Municipality of Pisa and of the Confucius Institute, and supported by association Imago and ACSI.

Download the invitation (PDF)

Venerdì 23 Settembre nel Museo della Grafica di Palazzo Lanfranchi si inaugura la mostra “Gli anni ’80 in 80 scatti”, una raccolta di 20 stampe fotografiche realizzate dall’artista e sinologo Andrea Cavazzuti, oltre a 60 fotografie digitalizzate (diapositive) rintracciate negli album delle famiglie emigrate dalla Cina in Italia negli anni ’80.

Nata da un’idea dell’associazione EOE (EstOvestEst), la mostra è patrocinata dal Comune di Pisa e dall’Istituto Confucio di Pisa, partner principale di EOE, con il supporto anche di IMAGO e ACSI.

L’esposizione sarà aperta al pubblico da venerdì 23 settembre a lunedì 10 ottobre 2022, visitabile tutti i giorni dalle ore 10:00 alle ore 19:00 escluso il lunedì.

In occasione della mostra, venerdì 30 Settembre è previsto un dibattito per raccontare la Cina di quegli anni e il modo in cui iniziavano ad affacciarsi al contesto italiano le prime famiglie cinesi, il loro processo di integrazione e le prime relazioni. Oltre all’artista Andrea Cavazzuti, all’incontro parteciperanno Barbara Pasquale, documentarista e video editor; Carlo Laurenti, scrittore e traduttore; Zhi An, professore e scrittore collegato direttamente dalla Cina via streaming.

SULLA MOSTRA

La raffinata ricerca di Andrea Cavazzuti che si presenta con stampe in bianco e nero di fotografie realizzate in quegli anni, contrasta con le foto proposte in video, riprese dagli album di famiglia, foto a colori che mantengono il sapore delle stampe comuni che ognuno di noi conserva tra i propri ricordi, e costituiscono uno spunto di riflessione su un periodo della nostra storia recente che, se ben vista con sguardi molto diversi, sottolinea una lontananza che oggi appare quasi dimenticata. Così spiega il suo rapporto con la Cina il fotografo Andrea Cavazzuti in un’intervista di Olivo Barbieri “…allenato com’ero a cercare oltre gli stereotipi anche in patria, fotografavo una Cina non vista e, quel che è peggio, nemmeno immaginata, quindi invisibile. Le cose già viste soddisfano, consolano, hanno a che fare con la memoria, mentre il non visto è secco, scostante, refrattario, a volte antipatico. La Cina mi si presentava come uno straordinario bazar di oggetti, scene e comportamenti non omologati tra i nostri cliché culturali. Per me era irresistibile: gli oggetti in vista, la totale mancanza di privacy, le attività umane messe in scena su un palcoscenico sempre aperto, il paradiso del fotografo”. E conclude “Non è possibile immaginare cosa sarà la Cina domani senza considerare cosa sia stata fino a ieri. E’ l’ultima frontiera di espansione della civiltà globale per come l’abbiamo conosciuta fino ad oggi. È l’ultimo e definitivo confronto di civiltà. Dopo la Cina, saremo al bivio. Mi illudo e spero, con questa mia scelta di vita, di aver dato a me stesso e ai miei figli almeno la possibilità, una volta giunti al bivio, di saper leggere i segnali stradali”.

CENNI BIOGRAFICI SU ANDREA CAVAZZUTI

Andrea Cavazzuti (Milano, 1959) è artista, fotografo, video e film maker e sinologo. Laureato in lingua e letteratura cinese presso Ca’ Foscari di Venezia. Nei primi anni ottanta si reca in Cina a Nanchino nel 1981 e poi a Shanghai nel 1982 per studiare per due anni alla Fudan University, esperienza che stabilì il suo legame indissolubile con la Cina. Inizia a fotografare negli anni settanta. Negli anni novanta si dedica a video e film. Il suo lavoro tratta diversi aspetti dell’arte e della società. Ha realizzato e partecipato a numerose produzioni, sia televisive che cinematografiche, poi distribuite da RAI, ARTÈ, SRF, ABC e Sky TV, nonché proiettate in cinema e istituzioni culturali internazionali. Il suo lavoro è stato esposto in Musei quali, Triennale di Milano, Italia; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, Cina; Museo Marco, Vigo, Spagna; Working People’s Cultural Palace, Pechino e Changjiang Museum, Taiyuan, Cina; MAXXI, Roma, Italia; Carnegie Hall, New York, Stati Uniti; Museo Ferroviario di Pietrarsa, Napoli, Italia.

the project creates a collection of environmental portrait photographs, combined with testimonies of personal experiences by the subjects

‘We Carry It With Us’: The impact of childhood bullying on adult life

by Jeremy Abrahams, Rosa Cisneros and Terezia Rostas

Jeremy Abrahams is a Sheffield-based photographer whose work is predominantly environmental portraiture and documentary, and focusses on positive representations of migration and related issues. Since becoming a professional photographer in 2014 he has had five solo exhibitions. His work has been supported by Arts Council England. His images have been published in the The Guardian, The New York Times, The Sunday Times, The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post and others. Currently he is working on producing “We Carry It With Us”, a collection of environmental portrait photographs combined with handwritten text on the prints telling an element of the subjects’ story in their own words. The project has photographed several individuals from various socio-economic backgrounds and stories. Jeremy has travelled across the UK to sit and learn more about the individuals he is photographing and collaboratively produce the final image.

When I asked Jeremy about the project he explained the ambitious aims and said he set out to do the following:

to visualise the positive and negative impacts of childhood bullying on adult life;
to document the singularity of each bullying experience and the commonalities in the experiences of people from similar and different backgrounds;
to create collaborative portraits that are negotiated by subject and photographer;
to integrate the subject’s story into the image by composing images with the space for the personally handwritten text in mind, enabling the text and the image to form one cohesive artwork;

“The project stems from personal experience of anti-semitic bullying during my school years. Having developed the concept through a programme of mentoring I then reviewed research in other fields.”

Jeremy has underpinned his creative project with academically sound data that was carried out by Ellen Walser deLara, an American academic in social sciences. Her research into childhood bullying on adult life found that the impact of bullying often persisted into adult life and manifested itself in a number of ways. Through her interviews with 800 people she identified that there is a lack of self-esteem, emotional problems, difficulties trusting others, substance misuse, people pleasing tendencies, as well as positive and unexpected outcomes. More on the research can be read in her book “Bullying Scars”. Through deLara’s work 47% of the participants reported positive impacts of childhood bullying highlighting that there was a commitment to ensure that others are not treated the same way, a desire to achieve to demonstrate their self-worth and a sense of empathy for others.

Jeremy says:

“The project is not shying away from difficult situations and asks individuals to face, discuss and explore ideas to represent that challenging experience. However, the final body of work will represent many people who turn their trauma into activism, so that an exhibition is an uplifting experience. An exhibition would also have scope for further public engagement. Bullying is a universal experience; most people have either been bullied, been a bully or observed it. All the visitors to an exhibition will have a personal response. Therefore, the exhibition should give them an opportunity to share their response. This could be done by creating a dummy book of the exhibition images, but without the subject’s text. Visitors could then write on the image themselves, so the dummy book would become part of the artwork.”

Moving forward to 2022, Jeremy invited Roma educational consultant and qualified teacher, Terezia Rostas, a Romanian Gabor Roma now living and working in Sheffield, UK to participate. The two collaborated and produced a photo that represents a sort of “turning point” for Terezia where she stood up to a teacher that bullied her.

When interviewed, Terezia said that she was incredibly excited and humbled by the experience and said that the project was a great example of challenging hate crime and bullying which leads to social change and a better world.

“Being part of the childhood bullying project led by Jeremy brought to light my entire childhood, meaning and purpose in life. It was an unfortunate experience of bullying, however this made me challenge myself and people like my teacher from primary school to prove that they are wrong.

There is nothing more powerful than to be you, in all senses. Not allowing the society’s rules, prejudice and stereotypes to change you, to be what you truly are with your whole cultural richness, beliefs, heritage and love for a culture in which you have been raised. Always be proud of this privilege and uniqueness.

I have no words to express how amazing what Jeremy is doing through this project is and how he is going to share it with the world.
Can you imagine, that thousands of people will be seeing, reading, feeling the same maybe and learn from these experiences, only through a photo with a short text exposed in various museums or virtually.” – Terezia Rostas

Rostas has used the image in a number of different educational environments, such as her work at Sheffield Park Academy, the EU-Funded Erasmus+ Project, RTransform, and also exhibited it at the Welcoming Cultures event at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield. This image has been a stimulus to explore bullying from a number of different perspectives. Roma activist, Terezia has engaged many young Roma girls to discuss their educational barriers and how they might turn those into academic success.

To find out more and see thee other images, visit his website:

https://www.jeremyabrahams.co.uk/wecarryitwithus

Contact Jeremy Abrahams info@jeremyabrahams.co.uk

If you would like to participate in the project Jeremy would love to hear from you.

the concluding event of this project, focused on local communities and identity, was held on 16 September 2022 in Girona

INCULTUM at WEAVE Final Conference

WEAVE – Widen European Access to cultural communities Via Europeana is a Europeana project funded by the CEF Programme of the EU and is part of the INCULTUM network. Focus of the project is on enhancing European access to intangible cultural heritage and the heritage of minority and local cultural communities.

In Girona on 16 September 2022 was organized the final conference “Weaving digital culture: tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the digital transformation”. The overarching theme of the conference was exploring connections between tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the process of digital transformation of cultural heritage organisations.

Antonella Fresa, director at Promoter and leader for dissemination in INCULTUM, participated in the event with a wide keynote speech, entitled “Cultural values, identities, participation and local communities”, where she also presented the INCULTUM project and its work to engage communities with their territories and local heritage. This is in facts an example of communities having a active role and a stake with their territorial and heritage promotion, which will have a positive impact on social ties and local ideentity.