UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Remembering the Past in the Future

2022-11-23

Cornelius Holtorf attended the conference “Remembering the Past in the Future” arranged by the Expert Group on Awareness Preservation of the Nuclear Energy Agency at the OECD at the Tabloo Visitor Centre in Dessel, Belgium (22-24 November 2022).

He organised and chaired a session on “Conceptualising Remembrance Across Generations” which was attended by an audience of more than 60. His own paper was entitled “History or heritage? Understanding cultural processes over time”. Anders Högberg participated virtually in the session and presented on “Futures literacy – Why it matters to transmit information on high-level radioactive waste to future generations.” The session ended in a lively discussion on what exactly the message might be that the present needs to send to the future in relation to long-term memory of final repositories of nuclear waste.

COP 27 on loss and damage

2022-11-18

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) held in November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, featured among many other events a session entitled “Losing the Irreplaceable: Loss & Damage, Culture & Heritage” which was arranged as part of the Resilience Hub on 17 November 2022.

This session, which Cornelius Holtorf attended digitally, was about cultural dimensions of loss and damage as a result of climate change. It asked: How does one grieve from the loss of the irreplaceable? What is the price of cultural extinction? Does loss mean the same thing in every culture?

In this perspective, heritage represents something irreplaceable that needs to be saved from loss and protected from damage.

But another way of looking at some of these issues is by asking: can heritage help us to increase resilience and adapt culture and heritage to changing natural conditions? What heritage is being created as a result of climate change? How can we enhance wellbeing of future generations despite major transformations we anticipate? 

As Hannah Fluck of the National Trust in the UK explained, one innovative strategy forward is focussing on “adaptive release”.

First Nordic UNESCO Chair meeting

2022-11-17

Cornelius Holtorf participated on 17 November 2022 in the first Nordic UNESCO Chair meeting with 11 chairholders from Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Among the themes we are jointly interested in are sustainability, rights, and education/training – all engaging with some grand challenges for global societies and/or the planet.

We agreed to have more collaboration in the future and look for ways to meet up physically. Maybe we could find resources that will allow us to document and discuss the value of our work for society, UNESCO, our national UNESCO Commissions, and our universities…

EU´s heritage work and policies

2022-11-16

Anders Högberg participated at “Höstmötet”, an annual conference arranged by the Swedish National Heritage Board https://www.raa.se/evenemang-och-upplevelser/hostmotet/program/

Anders was invited to present and discuss at a workshop on EU´s heritage work and policies and how it can change to accommodate new knowledge and actions needed for future social sustainability.

Anders Högberg

Anders Högberg, Professor of Archaeology, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

Progress Report 09/2021-08/2022

2022-11-15

A new report covers the fifth year of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University. Among the highlights of the year were several global initiatives to which our Chair could contribute with a distinctive perspective on heritage futures. The Chair’s membership of the Climate Heritage Network provides an important context for some of this work.

Among others, Cornelius Holtorf has been advising a Pilot Foresight Study of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM). As foresight and cultural heritage are now more frequently being discussed it is of great importance that we can explain clearly the significance of heritage futures – which is what the team behind the Chair has been working with in a new animation.

Animation: What are Heritage Futures and why do they matter?

Animation: What are Heritage Futures and why do they matter?
The basic idea is explained for everybody in this animation. Understand why futures thinking matters for cultural heritage management (2 min, English with subtitles, 2022). Available on the Chair’s YouTube channel: ‘Heritage Futures’ youtube.com/@HeritageFutures

Please get in touch if you have any comments or suggestions!

View the Report (issuu)
Download the Report

Team of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

Team of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

The Future of Cultural Objects

2022-11-08

Cornelius Holtorf contributed to a course in challenge-based learning near Trento, Italy (8 November 2022). The course was organised by the The European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) where learners, teachers and researchers cooperate with society and businesses to solve real-life challenges. The challenge was put together by Francesca Odella of the University of Trento and focused on the future of cultural objects.

My presentation was held at the Trentino Folklife Museum in San Michele all’ Adige and entitled “Heritage Futures: how culture and heritage must change for the future”. Some students joint via link.

Delphi Study on UN Foresight plans

2022-11-05

The Millennium Project, a global participatory think tank with 70 “Nodes” around the world has published its report: Five UN Foresight Elements of Our Common Agenda: Results of a Real-Time Delphi Study.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued Our Common Agenda, a bold report on UN reforms that includes five foresight elements; these elements were assessed by The Millennium Project. The five elements are:

  • UN Futures Lab
  • UN Summit on the Future
  • UN Envoy for Future Generations
  • Periodic UN Strategic Foresight and Global Threats reports
  • Re-purposed UN Trusteeship Council as a Multi-Stakeholder Foresight Body

a global study of 189 futurists and others from 54 countries. I was one of the contributors.

Lärande och framtiden

2022-10-11

Borde vi idag tänka mer på transformativt lärande för framtiden? frågar Gustav Wollentz (Nordiskt centrum för kulturarvspedagogik) i en ny blogg. Han beskriver det bakomliggande samarbetsprojekt med Växjö kommun vid Linnéuniversitetet på följande sätt:

Ur ett kulturarvsperspektiv undersöker jag för närvarade ungdomars (upp till ca 25 år) perspektiv på framtiden i ett utsatt område i Växjö, vid namn Araby. … Jag vill titta på hur en plats laddas med hopp inför framtiden genom att undersöka vilka handlingar och aktiviteter som gör att ungdomar känner hopp inför framtiden i Araby, och vad för kulturarv som skapas i den processen. Förhoppningen är att stärka banden mellan unga i Araby och kulturaktörer i Växjö. Alltså: jag närmar mig framtiden som kulturarvsskapande, vilket är en ovanlig ingång till kulturarv. Kulturarv har traditionellt sett oftare använts som en minnesinstitution snarare än en plats där vi kan skaffa oss erfarenheter som är transformativa och framtidsorienterade.

Precis som lärandet, ses kulturarv ofta som något som ska föras vidare till kommande generationer. Medan kulturarv traditionellt kopplas till något materiellt som bedöms vara värt att bevara för framtiden (såsom en staty eller en gravhög), så knuts lärande traditionellt till kunskap som är värd att föra vidare till en ny generation (såsom historien om en plats). Detta projekt är alltså ett försök till att vända perspektiven där framtiden får ett större utrymme i det lärande som sker genom kulturarv.

Responding to the climate emergency

2022-10-01

I have been attending the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development MONDIACULT 2022 in Mexico-City (28-30 September 2022). My University made a story out of it!

My formal role was an invited statement in the session “Responding to the climate emergency: new imperatives for cultural policy”, organised by the Climate Heritage Network. The session attracted an audience of more than 60 participants in the room (plus an unknown number of digital listeners) and it was very well received.

In my short contribution, I emphasized the significance of culture for mitigating the climate crisis and for preparing for a different world in the future. I also noted what I called the Climate Heritage Paradox:

  1. Heritage promotes continuity when we in fact need change.
  2. Heritage is framed in a local/national context when in fact we need global and multilateral collaboration.

(Similar issues are now also discussed in a White Paper on “The role of cultural and natural heritage for climate action” which resulted from the  International Co-Sponsored Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change co-arranged by IPCC, UNESCO, and ICOMOS in December 2021.)

I concluded with two action items. Capacity building is necessary …

  • for the cultural sector generally: integrate foresight and long-term futures thinking throughout the sector (as also recommended in the UN Secretary General’s 2021 report on Our Common Agenda)
  • for the cultural heritage sector and education in heritage: (a) embrace more often change (or cultural diversity over time), not as much continuity and conservation, as well as (b) strengthen global thinking in the field.