The Progress Report of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures for the year 2019-2020 is now available online!
Download here (pdf)
or click on the image to get a quick view
A new document containing principles and guidance for museums and heritage published under the title “New Futures for Replicas” makes reference to the notion of pastness and an understanding of authenticity as a socially mediated experience, drawing on work by Cornelius Holtorf.
The ICOMOS 6ISCs Joint Meeting “Advancing Risk Management for the Shared Future” was held virtually on 17 October 2020, assembling ca 100 participants from around the world, with more being able to watch the recording afterwards. The aim of the meeting was to develop risk management for cultural heritage.
Cornelius Holtorf contributed with a paper on “The Significance of Managing Heritage Processes in Times of Crisis” in which he argued that risk management strategies should give more attention to managing processes and practices of heritage.
The paper is available as an oral presentation and in written form as part of the meeting’s proceedings.
Authenticity and the reconstruction of cultural heritage are today on the top of the agenda of heritage studies. They reemerged in the aftermath of natural disasters and human conflicts resulting in destructions of cultural heritage, such as the recent military conflicts in Syria.
Can, and, indeed, should, destruction be undone? Does the reconstruction of cultural heritage always lie in the best interests of the local population? How can heritage best contribute to future-making? What is the relationship between the values of a given heritage and the circumstances of its creation or re-creation?
The articles in a new special issue on Authenticity and Reconstruction of the International Journal of Cultural Property, edited by Cornelius Holtorf, explore some of these issues:
The papers are combining current thinking in different disciplines (psychology, architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, and archaeology) with practical examples from around the world. They derive from the pilot workshop of the ICOMOS University Forum, titled “A Contemporary Provocation: Reconstructions as Tools of Future-making“. Held on 13–15 March 2017 at ICOMOS’s international head- quarters in Paris, France, the workshop was co-organized by Cornelius Holtorf (Linnaeus University, Sweden), Loughlin Kealy (University College Dublin, Ireland), Toshiyuki Kono (ICOMOS/Kyushu University, Japan), and Marie-Laure Lavenir (ICOMOS, France). As an event of the ICOMOS University Forum, its aim was to stimulate dialogue between professional heritage consultants and academic heritage experts.
Now published in free open access:
Forum Kritische Archäologie Vol. 9, 2020
Streitraum: Heritage Futures
Our evocative visualisations of Öland 2050 are now part of the digital exhibition “Memory Portals” (13 July-1 November 2020). Click on the image to enter!
Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. The volume Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years (2015-2019) by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds.
This large and collaborative project (directed by Rodney Harrison) lies behind our UNESCO Chair. The main results are presented in this book, which is available both in print and in free open access.
Heritage Futures. Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices
by Rodney Harrison, Caitlin DeSilvey, Cornelius Holtorf, Sharon Macdonald, Nadia Bartolini, Esther Breithoff, Harald Fredheim, Antony Lyons, Sarah May, Jennie Morgan, and Sefryn Penrose, with contributions by Gustav Wollentz and Anders Högberg.
568 pages, 188 colour illustrations
Open access (pdf) free | 978-1-78735-600-9
Paperback £35.00 | 978-1-78735-601-6
Hardback £50.00 | 978-1-78735-602-328 July 2020, http://uclpress.co.uk/heritagefutures
Archaeology is the study of the past in the present. But can it deal with the future too?
Some thoughts on these issues have now been published by Cornelius Holtorf in Post-Classical Archaeologies vol 10. By reviewing some recent and current projects conducted at Linnaeus University in Sweden he shows that it is possible to engage actively and constructively with the future and consider benefits of archaeology for future societies.
A contribution by Cornelius Holtorf and Annalisa Bolin for the blog Seeing the Woods of the Rachel Carson Centre has now been published, entitled
“CORONA CRISIS, UNESCO AND THE FUTURE: DO WE NEED A NEW WORLD HERITAGE?“
We argue that it is not surprising that many have started asking about the legacy that the “corona crisis” of 2020 is going to leave behind for the years and perhaps for decades to come. Seldom have the relations between present and future societies felt more relevant than during the present weeks…
Coronakrisen har gjort att många tänker lite mer på framtiden i dessa dagar. Alla våra egna planer har ändrats, många har tappat inkomster, vissa har inget jobb att återvända till, några har förlorat en anhörig eller vän.
Men hur har historien i stort påverkats? Vilka är konsekvenserna för kulturmiljön? Hur spelar Coronakrisen ihop med andra pågående förändringsprocesser så som klimatkrisen, urbanisering och den snabba digitala utvecklingen?
Och vad innebär förändring för ett Unesco världsarv som ska bevaras för framtiden lite extra?
I det här projektet har vi tagit fasta på år 2050 och visualiserat fem olika framtidsbilder som spekulerar hur världsarvet Södra Ölands odlingslandskap skulle kunna se ut då.
Hur kan framtiden se ut för ett odlingslandskap som befinner sig i kontinuerlig förändring? Vilken roll kan världsarvet spela i en framtid som på flera sätt inte liknar vår egen tid?
Ett samarbete mellan Linnéuniversitetets Unescoprofessur i Heritage Futures och Mörbylånga kommun. En utställning kommer att resa runt Öland.
Projektgrupp: Daniel Lindskog (grafik), Gustav Wollentz (informationshämtning och text), Cornelius Holtorf (ledning)
Tack till Urban Ekstam, Birgitta Eriksson, Susanne Forslund, Roger Gustafsson, Anne Hamrin Simonsson, Niklas Holmgren, Pär Holmgren, Dave Karlsson, Rebecka Le Moine, Emma Rydnér och Ebbe Westergren.
