UNESCO

I have been reading a wonderful study by Dolly Jørgensen on Recovering Lost Species in the Modern Age (MIT Press, 2019). The book traces historical connections between emotions and conservation, in other words (as the subtitle has it) “histories of longing and belonging”. 

Here is an extract from her concluding chapter:

I would posit that the same applies for cultural heritage at large. Conservation of cultural heritage is motivated and driven by emotions and a sense of longing for what the heritage represents. In that sense, saving the heritage at the same time means to save ourselves…

Cornelius Holtorf and Anders Högberg (among others) are going to work in a new project funded by Kamprad Family Foundation 2020-2021.

The project is entitled “Post-Pandemic Tourism Development: Navigating Uncertainty in the Visitor Economy” and seeks to study how stakeholders in the visitor economy in and around Kalmar make sense of the uncertainty induced by the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We will engage stakeholders in the visitor economy in a forward-looking process to open horizons that envision the present crisis as a chance to work towards a more sustainable future.

In 2012, the European Foresight Platform, a network building program supported by the European Commission,organized in Brussels, Belgium, a one-day workshop with a total of 13 participants on The Future of Cultural Heritage.

The aim of this gathering was to identify trends and drivers of change that may impact upon cultural heritage in Europe, in order to support strategic thinking in the heritage sector concerning the creation, management, preservation, promotion, use and funding of cultural heritage in the coming decades.

The resulting report contains an outline of a number of relevant trends and developments in society, technology, economy, ecology and politics and a discussion of their potential significance and relevant implications for cultural heritage. Interesting!