Anders Högberg held a keynote lecture at the conference “Kulturarvsforskning i Sverige 2025” – Cultural Heritage Research in Sweden 2025, organised by the Swedish National Heritage Board 20-21 March 2025 in Stockholm. Keynote paper: ‘Cultural heritage research 2025 – some thoughts on where we stand and questions for the future’.
Ulrika Söderström also presented her dissertation at the conference: “Cultural heritage as a resource in socially sustainable urban development: A designed living environment for the future”.
Zoos and natural heritage futures This talk is about zoos and the roles of natural heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies. I will present several ways in which zoos can contribute to raising significant issues that directly address anticipated needs of future societies. This includes questions on what it means to be human, the relations between human and non-human lifeforms, and how to make sense of a changing world through animals. That world will face the following challenges, among others:
AI/machine learning: challenging the distinction between things and people
Space exploration (Mars): raising questions about belonging and responsibilities in the Universe
Climate change and environmental destruction: blurring the boundary between nature and culture
Zoos remain significant in the future because they can be creating opportunities for engaging people in stories about what it means to be human and about a variety of ways for human societies of relating to the natural world.
On the 25th of February 2025 Gustav Wollentz presented and participated in a panel discussion at the conference “The Houses, the History, and the Future” (Husen, historien och framtiden) that was organized in Gothenburg by Gothenburg University and multiple other partners in the region. There were around 140 heritage professionals attending the conference, mostly working with, and researching on, the conservation and restoration of buildings.
Gustav contributed to the final part of the conference, where future challenges and opportunities were in focus. Gustav presented the work on Strategic Foresight he has been carrying out together with ICCROM, including the Horizon Scanning looking 15 years ahead, and the work for the pan-European ARCHE project, with the goal to produce a new Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for Heritage in Europe.
In the presentation, Gustav focused on four specific opportunities for action related to future change:
Heritage to shape more desirable, sustainable and just futures,
Heritage to increase wellbeing,
Heritage to understand and reveal the humanity in individuals,
Heritage to cope with loss and change.
The presentation and panel discussion were very well received and there was a large interest to further explore Strategic Foresight.
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