UNESCO

“Given the state of the world today, the many crises that we face …we need to be talking about existential things, if you like. And we need to talk about existential things in ways that become relatable in everyday terms. And heritage gives us the language to do that.” (Nick Shepherd, Aarhus University)

“Over the past two days we’ve very much been focusing on what it means to be a human and be a researcher at the same time. So it’s about bringing our personal experiences into conversations of heritage and climate change. And I think that is something I will definitely take back with me.” (Hana Morel, Historic England).

The workshop Climate, Heritage, and Policy: Dialogues in Learning held 27-29 May 2026 at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden (Kalmar Dialogues) brought together the vast scope and urgency of climate change with ideas and activities that engaged participants in learning and collaborating as their whole human selves. Twenty researchers and practitioners in heritage and climate from across Sweden and from Norway, Denmark, the UK, and France used art, local exploration, the practice of dialogue, and many different conversations with each other to find new ways to talk about what is changing in environments around us and how we are experiencing and taking in these changes – and from all this, what new things we can see to do together next.

In this short film about the workshop, it is possible to see not only what participants did, but hear in their own words how this approach gave them new perspectives and energy for the work they do. Watch here.

This workshop was a project of the UNESCO Chair for Heritage Futures, led by Marcy Rockman with support of Cornelius Holtorf and funding from the Swedish Research Council and developed in collaboration with and moderated by Creative Futures. A full report on this workshop also has been prepared and is available here.