UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Heritage Futures – the book

2020-07-31

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 | 978-1-78735-602-3

28 July 2020, http://uclpress.co.uk/heritagefutures

The Futures Game

2020-07-17

Summer pleasures in the park: members and friends of the UNESCO Chair play the Futures Game, creating imaginative stories about alternative heritage futures.

Various activities April – June 2020

2020-07-03

Cornelius Holtorf took part in the Annual Meeting of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Sweden, raising the question of how ICOMOS as a global NGO in the cultural sector might respond to the corona crisis (16 April 2020)

Cornelius Holtorf participated in a high-level digital conference on Agenda 2030 – sustainable transformation on a scientific basis, organised by FORMAS, Sweden’s funding council for sustainable development. The conference proved to be directly relevant to the work of our UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures. During the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Isabella Lövin acknowledged that remembering is important and that “we need to take a longer time perspective”. Ulrika Modéer, Assistant Director General of the UN, emphasised the need and a growing readiness in many countries to collaborate globally for addressing global challenges. Eeva Furman, one of the authors of the Global Development Sustainable Report (2019), suggested that culture has an important role to play in achieving sustainable development. Several other prominent speakers mentioned the need to support research that is interdisciplinary, collaborates between different sectors, produces other outcomes than only top-level publications, and is applicable in policy and practice, globally (4 May 2020).

Cornelius Holtorf presented a Masterclass on “How can heritage professionals respond to environmental change?” for the HERILAND College for Heritage Planning’s digital workshop  on  Changing Environments, bringing together ca 30 Ph.D. students and their supervisors as well as representatives of partner organisations, from Belgium, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Sweden (11 May 2020).

Cornelius Holtorf presented the story behind the colouring book “Archaeology Today” for an international audience of about 20 attending a seminar during the National Archaeology Week dedicated this year to Archaeology in Society, held at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia (20 May 2020).

Cornelius Holtorf took part in the Virtual Opening and Streaming Festival associated with the major exhibition “Critical Zones. Observatories for Earthly Politics” curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weigel (22-24 May 2020)