UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Zeit Raum Reise

2023-06-20

Cornelius Holtorf presented an invited keynote lecture on “Time Travel as Archaeological Practice” for a Workshop on Zeit. Raum. Reise. Frühgeschichte als Erlebnis organised by Museumsakademie Universalmuseum Joanneum (Graz, Austria) in collaboration with Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Archäologie, in Herne, Germany (19 June 2023). 

Holtorf also participated in an associated workshop on speculative design entitled “Aus der Zukunft lernen: Einblick in die Welt von morgen durch Design, Fiktion und reverse Archäologie” run by Ceren Topcu-Weigand. 

One of the results of the workshop was to demonstrate the potential of time travelling as a unique form of understanding other times, combining the potential for bodily engagements, using the senses and emotions, with the need to work creatively with future scenarios. Time travels today do not only employ physical role play but can also make use of advanced digital technology.

 

 

Forum Kulturarv

2021-11-09

Cornelius Holtorf and Helena Rydén represented the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at the Cultural Heritage Forum “Cultural Heritage for the Future” held 8-9 November 2021 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and attended by 150 participants and 27 exhibitors.

Helena Rydén managed an exhibition displaying information about the Chair and samples of its publications and other work. Cornelius Holtorf held a one-hour plenary session on “We need to work more with the future in the cultural heritage sector!”, featuring a short lecture, two films, much interaction with the public, and a panel debate with Tina Lindström (Kalmar County Museum) and Johan Swahn (The Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review, MKG). Together, we presented and discussed how the cultural heritage sector can work with the future and why this is important, with special examples taken from cultural heritage pedagogy (timetravelling to the future at Kalmar County Museum) and concerning long-term memory of repositories of nuclear waste. After the session, several participants described the experience as “an eye-opener”.

An Archaeology for the Future

2020-05-31

Archaeology is the study of the past in the present. But can it deal with the future too?

  • Which future(s) are archaeologists working for?
  • Which archaeological heritage will benefit future generations most?
  • How can archaeologists build capacity in futures thinking? 

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.