Digital meets Culture

online, 1 - 4 February 2022

European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry ECQI 2022

The congress theme of the 5th edition of the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry is
“Qualitative Inquiry in the online technological realm“.

Organized by KU Leuven, this edition was a virtual event with a large programme of keynotes, presentations, workshops and posters. The event made use of an interactive enviroment based on MIRO Boards.

Main board: VIEW HERE

Concept:

We live in a societal realm where robotics and artificial intelligence are strongly reshaping our futures. The boundaries between (wo)mankind and machine have increasingly become blurred. Our phones are an extension of our hand, our computers have become the gatekeepers to significant others. Robots we are not, perhaps not yet. Desires, expectations and visions differ. Where would a detailed cartography of the individual and social impact of becoming machine, partly already being machine, or living in symbiosis with machines lead us? How do we imagine a future with, without or as part of the materiality that currently surrounds us? How do the implicit world views as presented in fiction, fantasy and progressive research shape our future image?

Our societal and academic reality is rapidly changing, facing a multitude of challenges. The scholarly community needs to think through the multiple challenges this rapid change will bring. Technological progress creates new possibilities. Alternatively, it might perhaps pose a danger to liberal democracy or reinstall undesirable exclusion mechanisms.

The ECQI 2022 shared stories about how humans materialize differently as a result of the discursive-material socio-technical realities they are part of.

Onsite in Tallinn and online, 21-27 May 2022

Symbiosis of Tradition and Digital Technology

The CIDOC 2021 conference “Symbiosis of Tradition and Digital Technology”, planned in September 2021 was postponed to Spring 2022 due to the new government restrictions and rising COVID-19 cases in Estonia. The hybrid conference will take place in Tallinn at Maarjamäe History Centre from 21 to 27 May, 2022.

Despite the postponement, the topic and themes of the conference will remain the same. CIDOC conference “Symbiosis of Tradition and Digital Technology” will set its focus on three main subjects: “Strategic Planning”, “The Future of Documentation” and “A Wonderland of Digital Technology”.

The conference main programme will take place between May 23 to 26, workshops and working group meetings will take place on May 21 and 22, post-conference trips will take place on the 27th of May 2022. Detailed programme of the conference is available on the conference website.

Already purchased tickets in 2021 will be valid for 2022 conference.

The early bird registration is available until March 15, 2022.

Website: https://cidoc2021.com/

Firenze (Italy), 18-20 May 2022

Florence Heri-Tech 2022

Florence Heri-Tech was launched in 2018 by the Department of Industrial Engineering of University of Florence (DIEF) and Florence Biennial Art and Restoration Fair. The idea is to create a synergy between Cultural Heritage and New Technologies. The Conference involves a large number of research projects and scholars from around the world and puts the industry’s current issues under the spotlight, specifically on issues related to innovative techniques and technologies for Cultural Heritage. The Conference is part of the 8th Edition of the Florence Biennial Art and Restoration Fair, an international event attracting prestigious institutions and companies and creating a unique opportunity to bring together the academic word with industry. The city of Florence will therefore be the international heart of Restoration and Cultural and Environmental assets as well as a forum for meeting and discussing for experts and enthusiasts from around the world. The Conference will be a significant opportunity for exchange between researchers and companies for the promotion of productive excellence, technological evolution, the greater use of culture for younger sections of the population and specialization in the educational field for graduates and PhD students.

A call for paper is open until 10th January.

More info and call for papers: http://www.florenceheritech.com/

Areas and topics: https://www.florenceheritech.com/areas-and-topics/

involving communities and other stakeholders for awareness-raising on the importance of active participation in natural and cultural heritage

Presenting INCULTUM in Environmental Volunteering Meeting

images courtesy of Elena Correa Jiménez.

A conference entitled “Encuentro de Voluntariado Ambiental” was organized on 18-19 December in the Sierra de Huétor Natural Park, where the multiple possibilities and scenarios that this natural space offers for volunteering were highlighted as a way for active citizen engagement with natural and cultural heritage.

Among the presentations, project coordinator José Mª Martín Civantos and colleague Elena Correa Jiménez, University of Granada / MEMOLab Laboratorio de Arqueología Biocultural discussed the vision of INCULTUM for promoting local territories by enabling the participation of the communities settled therein.

The event catalyzed closer and more fluid relationships between the actors involved in environmental participation (the natural parks, organizations for promotion, volunteers, academia, policy makers and local municipalities etc.). As a culmination, participants carried out a real and diverse participatory action to “get our hands dirty and take on the challenge of environmental participation”. Participants in the meeting were volunteers, people interested in being it, organizations that promote volunteering, academia, and administrations.

Website (Spanish language): https://espaciosnaturalesgranada.com/huetor/encuentro-de-voluntariado-ambiental/

Publication by Culture Action Europe

Culture in the EU’s National Recovery and Resilience Plans

A new document was recently published by Culture Action Europe as part of the #CulturalDealEU campaign, which demands the full inclusion of culture in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the European Green Deal, calling on the EU Member States to devote at least 2% of their National Resilience and Recovery Plans (NRRPs) to culture.

In 2020 the European institutions adopted an stimulus package, called Next Generation EU (NGEU), to boost the recovery of the continent after the pandemic crisis and make European economies and societies more sustainable, resilient and better equipped for the green and digital transitions.

The core component of this envelope, called Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is channeled to EU Member States between 2021 and 2026.

The report intends to present the state of play one year after the launch of this campaign; it aims to analyze the types of investments and reforms (if any) are contained in the NRRPs in direct support of the European cultural ecosystem affected harshly by the long crisis and subsequent containment measures.

The publication has been coordinated by Culture Action Europe which, in order to map investments and reforms relevant for culture included in the various NRRPs, mobilised its wide membership to get an overview of the different types of interventions, as well as the budget mobilised to this end.

Download the pubblication

Further Information:

A Cultural Deal for Europe, jointly developed by Culture Action Europe, the European Cultural Foundation, and Europa Nostra (representing the European Heritage Alliance) is a call from a wider European cultural community to acknowledge the pivotal role of culture in shaping the future of our lives and communities.

December 14, organized by UAL Social Design Institute

UNCHARTED at the “What’s the value in and of creative practice?” event

Today December 14, 2021 the event organized by UAL Social Design Institute takes place to discuss about the value of creative practice.

The mission of UAL Social Design Institute is to make a positive social and environmental difference. It intends to develop and use research insights to inform and change how designers and organisations design.

Starting from the fact that there is currently no agreed approach to evaluating creative practice, nor is there a generally accepted conceptual framework to support this, during the event a panel of speakers from different fields of creative practice and research will share their insights and explore the issue of value in relation to creative practice.

Among the speakers, we are pleased to announce that Paolo Ferri Professor at the University of Bologna and partner of UNCHARTED, will be present.

The participants from different fields of creative practice and research, will reflect on the issues from their own disciplinary perspectives, as well as explore and test the possibility of developing an inter and transdisciplinary point of view on the question of what is the value in and of creative practice.

The event will take place online on the zoom platform

More information on the Workshop.

Tourism as a driver of rural development and inclusion is at the basis of the awarding criteria of the United Nations World Tourism Organization

A small apennine town in Marche region awarded as best tourism village in Italy

The Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO United Nations World Tourism Organization initiative was launched to advance the role of tourism in safeguarding rural villages, along with their landscapes, natural and cultural diversity, and their local values and activities, including local gastronomy.

A total of 44 villages from 32 countries across the five world regions were granted the recognition in 2021. All of them stand out for their natural and cultural resources as well as for their innovative and transformative actions and commitment to the development of tourism in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The only awarded town in Italy is San Ginesio, a mountain village close to the Umbrian-Marche Apennines, which is among the 41 municipalities in the world that have been awarded “Best Tourism Villages”. “It is with particular pride – says the Minister of Tourism Massimo Garavaglia – that a small Italian municipality, moreover hit in the past by the earthquake, has been indicated by the Word Tourism Organization as the best tourist village”.

The best examples of villages embracing tourism to provide opportunity and drive sustainable development have been celebrated at the World Tourism Organization General Assembly in Madrid in December 2021.

“Tourism can be a driver of social cohesion and inclusion by promoting a fairer distribution of benefits throughout the territory and empowering local communities,” says UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili. “This initiative recognizes those villages committed to making tourism a strong driver of their development and wellbeing”.

More info:
https://www.sanginesioturismo.it/
https://www.unwto.org/news/unwto-announces-list-of-best-tourism-villages-2021

The NEFELI Online training was held from Nov 29 - Dec 3 and welcomed people from Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, the UK, Spain and Poland

WEAVE was a best practice example at the Erasmus+ NEFELI training

img. courtesy Rosa Cisneros

text and image by Rosa Cisneros.

The Erasmus+ NEFELI project offered a weeklong training of non-formal learning activities and methods that can support women from various parts of society. The team targeted women from grassroots communities, refugee and asylum seekers as well as researchers working with this group of women/girls.

The NEFELI Online training was held from Nov 29-Dec 3 and welcomed people from Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, the UK, Spain and Poland. The project team also honoured the UN’s 16 days of activism campaign of End Violence against Women through sharing the Grow and Glow film co created with women across the UK and Europe.

Objectives of the training included:

Expanding and developing the competencies of educators and participants of non-formal educational activities.
Share the different methodologies followed by each organisation.
Understand Critical Communicative Methodology, Freire’s theory and learn about the dialogic literary gatherings.
Share successful educational activities between the partner organisations.
Train the educators and the participants on different methodologies so that they are able to implement them in their contexts.
Promote the participation of grassroots women in non-formal educational activities.
Understand how to engage with digital tools like padlets or google docs

Rosa Cisneros (COVUNI) is involved in the NEFELI project and leads on the Communicative Methodology (CM) strand of the work. On the second day of the training Cisneros presented practical examples of CM and presented the WEAVE project, consortium and the LabDays being developed within the project. Europeana was also discussed and explored and the use of digital technologies in relation to minority communities was critically unpacked. The participants identified key questions that pertain to them and their contexts and used cultural heritage objects from Europeana to reflect on their environments.

involving communities in the restoration and reconstruction of cultivation terraces once delimited by drystone walls

Fieldwork for INCULTUM Pilot 1 on Altiplano de Granada

One of the Pilots of project INCULTUM is set in the stunning landscape of the Altiplano de Granada. It is a flat semi-arid area with poor soils and an extreme climate due to its altitude, continental influence and the presence of surrounding mountains. These characteristics have contributed to the creation of a unique landscape marked by impressive badlands where the historical relationship between humans and the environment has built balances based on a sustainable use of resources, particularly water and soils. This has allowed the creation of historical irrigation systems that form real oases of great beauty with numerous cultural and environmental values.

As part of the recovery efforts to promote the area, an initiative of fieldwork is organized in January 2022 to restore and reconstruct the cultivation terraces once delimited by drystone walls. The activity is coordinated by the MEMOLab at the University of Granada, the laboratory of biocultural archaeology, involving local communities and associations for the territory’s promotion.

Learn more about INCULTUM Pilot 1 >>>

What is your heritage-led innovation dream?

ILUCIDARE Innovation Handbook

After the ILUCIDARE Playground event on 2-3 December focusing on the relationship between heritage and innovation, citizen involvement and participatory governance of heritage for innovation in the territories, the ILUCIDARE project launched its Innovation Handbook for heritage.

The publication is based on solid research which included a review of what is already happening in Europe on the heritage and innovation front, analysis to identify the most suitable approach to analyze and activate innovation and 131 heritage-led innovation case studies.

ILUCIDARE designed an open tool to acquaint with what heritage and innovation actually have in common.
It offers an innovation roadmap for anyone with a new idea related to a heritage building, site or even local traditions and seeks to identify pathways to enable creative ideas in the cultural heritage sector to become high-impact innovations.
ILUCIDARE partners validated the handbook and aligning it with all experiences they bring to the project.

Anyone can contribute: a heritage entrepreneur, a major project management expert, or an innovation expert who is not familiar with heritage. The roadmap has been designed to be general, but useful for everyone.

What is your heritage-led innovation dream?
Take a look at this manual and try the roadmap: ILUCIDARE Innovation Handbook