UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Collaboration with Korea

2021-11-22

A Memorandum of Understanding has now been signed by the two Deans of the College of Cultural Heritage at Korea National University of Cultural Heritage and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University.

In the MoU the two sides expressed their intention to collaborate in the following ways:

  1. Exchange of students, faculty members/researchers and administrative staff,
  2. Joint lectures, seminars, and conferences,
  3. Collaborative academic research/teaching projects and activities.

The MoU is the result of a visit by a delegation from Korea to the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University in 2019.

Framtidsmedvetande inom kulturarvssektorn

2021-11-20

Gustav Wollentz (NCK) diskuterar frågan “Hur kan vi öka framtidsmedvetandet inom kulturarvssektorn?” på EPALE (Europeisk plattform för vuxnas lärande). Hans slutsats:

Det går att konkludera att ett utökat framtidsmedvetande är en kompetens som man kan lära sig, och som sannolikt kommer bli alltmer betydelsefull både specifikt inom kulturarvssektorn och även i samhället i stort. På många vis är det nödvändigt för att faktiskt kunna möta de utmaningar som samhället står inför.

Gustavs forskning genomfördes med stöd av, och i samarbete med Unescoprofessuren om Heritage Futures.

Progress Report 09/2020-08/2021

2021-11-19

This report covers the fourth year for which the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University was originally established in 2017. During the entire year, the team continued to work under the spell of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which meant a drastic cut of travelling and a similarly drastic increase of virtual meetings hosted around the world.

A particular highlight of the year was the publication by Routledge of the book Cultural Heritage and the Future (co-edited by C. Holtorf and A. Högberg, 2021).

At the end of the year, the research group received the excellent news that the Chair has been renewed by UNESCO for another four years.

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

Cornelius Holtorf, Professor of Archaeology and holder of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

Read more and download the report

Progress Report 2020-2021

Radiation Safety Authority follows

2021-11-15

In the new report “Redovisning av regeringsuppdrag om metoder för säkerställande av information och kunskap över lång tid för slutförvaret för kärnbränsle” (SSM rapport 2021:24), the Swedish Nuclear Safety Authority has been documenting known methods for achieving long-term memory in relation to nuclear waste repositories.


The report makes reference to the key literature and documentation in the field globally, while also discussing the specific situation in Sweden. We have long been in touch with the two authors Carl-Henrik Pettersson and Annika Bratt, and so it is not surprising that the work of Linnaeus University on this topic, both in Sweden and internationally, is mentioned on several occasions. This includes in particular a short separate discussion of the 2019 workshop Information and Memory for Future Decision-Making – Radioactive Waste and Beyond run by the Swedish Nuclear Waste Council in Stockholm and the VINNOVA project on Memory Across Generations it led to. There is also a short discussion of our research project Ett hundra tusen år bakom och framåt i tiden – arkeologi möter kärnbränsleförvaring supported by the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co back in 2012-2015.

We are still very involved in these issues, at the moment mostly as part of an expert group at the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency.

Lessons from heritage for nuclear waste disposal sites

2021-11-10

Cornelius Holtorf presented a paper by him together with Anders Högberg at the Interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices: Technical and Social Approaches to Managing the Hazardous Legacy of Nuclear Power Generation (10-12 Nov 2021) arranged by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management in Germany (BASE).

The paper was entitled “Lessons from archaeology and heritage studies for the long-term preservation of records, knowledge and memory concerning deep geological disposal sites for nuclear waste” and its abstract is available as part of the conference proceedings at https://sand.copernicus.org/articles/1/287/2021/.

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”.

Culture and cultural heritage@COP26

2021-11-02

Cornelius Holtorf attended parts or all of the following sessions organised during COP26 with relevance to culture and cultural heritage. His own agenda on these issues in relation to COP26 is available here.

1 Nov 2021

  • ARTS, HERITAGE, CULTURE: Reimagining our climate journey from knowledge to action (Opening of the Resilience Hub)

2 Nov 2021

  • A Culture of Resilience: Launch of the Climate Heritage Network Race to Resilience Campaign (part of the Resilience Hub). See here for a programmatic statement on this new campaign.
  • Climate Change Impacts on Cultural and Natural Heritage (part of the EU Pavilion events). This high-level meeting organised by the Government of Greece included, among others, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece, Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, Margaritas Schinas, Vice-President of the European Commission, John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State, and government ministers of various states.
Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO
Margaritas Schinas, Vice-President of the European Commission
John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State

4 Nov 2021

  • The [uncertain] Four Seasons, concert performed via film and accessible both virtually and at Glasgow Caledonian University

5 Nov 2021

9 Nov 2021

  • Cultural Heritage, Resilience & the Built Environment: an intergenerational dialogue (part of the Resilience Hub)

11 Nov 2021

On balance, questions about culture and cultural heritage were probably more visible than at any other COP before – the result of a dedicated effort by many people and initiatives. At the same time, the way cultural heritage is discussed in relation to climate change has become much more sophisticated and relevant too, no longer mainly about heritage ending up under rising water levels…

Culture, cultural heritage and COP26

2021-11-01

As COP26 is starting in Glasgow, the important role of culture in people’s lives is still neglected.

Culture shapes how people make sense and therefore act in the world. Often, what people consider to be important in their lives is connected to cultural patterns derived from the past – their cultural heritage.

A world being remoulded through climate change calls for two issues to be addressed using the power of culture and cultural heritage:

  1. Humanity as a whole needs more solidarity worldwide, mutual trust, and comprehensive collaboration to address pressing global challenges.
  2. People on Earth and their societies will need a greater ability to adapt to new conditions and embrace change.

Culture and cultural heritage are the key to assist present and future generations in adapting to changing circumstances, together.

The UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures is a member of the Climate Heritage Network.

“What Does It Mean to Decolonize Heritage?” in SAPIENS magazine

2021-10-07

At the anthropology magazine SAPIENS, UNESCO Chair postdoctoral fellow Annalisa Bolin and David Nkusi, a heritage sites protection specialist at Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy, write about their research in Nyanza District, a rural area of Rwanda. They examine the relationship between local communities and heritage resources in light of discussions about how to decolonize heritage management globally: “We need to be trusted with a sense of responsibility in the management of our heritage,” local leaders argued in the research, drawing on Rwandan philosophies of agaciro and kwigira (dignity and self-reliance). For more, visit SAPIENS here. 

Knowledge Cube

Knowledge Cube

Knowledge Cube exhibit: ‘Back to the Future’, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University

What can we know about the future? What or what different futures do we preserve cultural heritage for? How do we communicate with future generations?

These and other questions about how we communicate who we are and what we do are addressed in the exhibition Back to the Future in the Knowledge Cube at the University Library in Växjö. The basis of the exhibition is the research conducted within the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures, which was established at Linnaeus University in 2017.

Topics include world heritage and Öland2050, long-term communication on nuclear waste disposal sites, the Voyager space message, the picture book WOW! The Future is Calling! and the colouring book Archaeology Today.

The team of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures is presented too. 

The exhibition opened on 4 October at 14.30 in Växjö by Cornelia Witthöft, our Deputy Vice Chancellor for research. 

The exhibition runs until spring 2022. 

News item

kunskapskuben

Exhibit: Back to the Future on the opening 4 October 2021, Knowledge Cube at the University Library in Växjö. From left: Kerstin Brodén, Tina Dahlgren, Cornelius Holtorf, Sofie Tunbrant, Helena Rydén, Cornelia Witthöft, Emma Rydnér.