UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Interview with Cornelius Holtorf

2021-02-26

Now available: Britta Rudolff’s interview (27 min) with Cornelius Holtorf on “heritage futures”, recorded as part of Britta’s teaching in the Introduction to Heritage Site Management Masters course at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg (28 January 2021).

“Heritage And Our Sustainable Future”

2021-02-23

I am attending this week and next the digital conference “Heritage And Our Sustainable Future: Research, Practice, Policy and Impact“, organised by the UNESCO Commission for the UK and attended by an audience or more than 300 people from around the world. Ernesto Ottone (Assistant Director-General for Culture, UNESCO) contributed with an introductory note.

In a discussion on heritage in relation to disaster response and resilience, Joe King (ICCROM) agreed with my call for more ethnographic research on what heritage actually does in societies by suggesting that we need to build capacity among heritage managers to learn that heritage conservation is not always part of the solution in conflict situations but can also be part of the problem.

Similarly, Charlotte Andrews from Bermuda suggested that maybe the community could be asked what they want to be restored and what not, as there could be benefits from some destruction too, which we saw recently in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Swedish TV news – Warning the people of the future about nuclear waste

2021-02-05

Swedish TV news programme last night broadcast a reportage about long-term memory preservation in relation to nuclear waste repositories . They focused mainly on future archaeology, and the piece featured interviews with Erik Setzman (SKB, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company) and Cornelius Holtorf, professor of Archaeology at Linnaeus University and holder of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures.

Although it is in Swedish, you may still be able to catch the gist of it from the pictures including the historic video clips they found and the simulations (!).

The programme is available at  https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/sa-ska-framtida-folk-varnas-for-karnavfall 

 

nuclear warning sign of the International Atomic Energy Agency

Photo: This nuclear warning sign of the International Atomic Energy Agency may be crystal clear to people like us. But the various symbols on a red background inside a triangular sign may not unambiguously communicate to distant future generations why this particular legacy of our time should be approached with caution.

The Future in Heritage Studies

2021-02-04

Cornelius Holtorf was invited to present a digital lunchtime seminar on “The Future in Heritage Studies and its Future” at the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, University of Cambridge (4 February 2021).

For an audience of almost 70, Holtorf reviewed the significance of the future in heritage studies, arguing that the anticipated needs and benefits of heritage for specific future generations have very rarely been explicitly addressed or critically discussed. As heritage is increasingly linked to the Agenda 2030, the significance of the future in heritage studies becomes ever more important and a critical engagement with this notion and its meaning is urgently needed.

The UNESCO Chair om Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University attempts to make a difference in that respect by building global capacity for futures thinking among heritage professionals.