UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Review by Kate Croll

2024-02-05

Our book

Holtorf, C. and Högberg, A. (eds). 2021. Cultural Heritage and the Future. New York: Routledge. 279 pp. ISBN 978-1-138-82901-5 (paperback).

has been reviewed by Kate Croll, Dept of Anthropology, Archaeology and Development Studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her review has now been published in South African Archaeological Bulletin 78 (219), 2023, 123-125.

Among others, she writes:

“Ultimately, this book is a useful reference for all heritage
practitioners – from archaeologists to heritage site managers –
since it provides a guide for how to think about the future in a
broad sense: that it is changeable and fluid, and that the way
we think about heritage today should be equally flexible.”

Getty Scholarship

2024-01-31

January through March, Cornelius Holtorf spends in Los Angeles, USA as a Getty Conservation Guest Scholar.

During this time he is concerned with a project entitled “Heritage in Transformation”. His main question is this: if the future will be (and must be) changing in relation, among others, to the climate crisis, what does that mean for how the past and cultural heritage will be changing and have to change?

A new study published: Anticipating Futures for Heritage

2024-01-15

The heritage sector has up until now seldom engaged with Strategic Foresight to better prepare for – and proactively face – different futures. This makes a new study just published by ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) significant as an example that could potentially inspire other heritage actors to venture on their own Foresight journeys. 

In 2021, ICCROM, as part of its Foresight Initiative, employed Strategic Foresight to anticipate different futures for the heritage sector globally. This was done to increase resilience in the face of a changing world and outline possible opportunities for action. Gustav Wollentz, from the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures, is one of the authors of the study, together with Alison Heritage and Amy Iwasaki. Cornelius Holtorf contributed as an expert advisor. 

To undertake this work, ICCROM launched a horizon scan study, which is an established method within Strategic Foresight, to gather intelligence about possible macro-environmental changes that might affect cultural heritage in the future. The project engaged an interdisciplinary team of 18 researchers and two advisors from different world regions who collectively generated over 60 research reports looking out over a 15-year horizon. The findings are categorized according to the PESTE-Framework: Political, Environmental, Societal, Technological and Economic.

The publication is available Open Access from here: https://www.iccrom.org/publication/anticipating-futures-heritage

Various activities October – December 2023

2023-12-29

Cornelius Holtorf attended a zoom seminar on Hur kan vi framtidssäkra vår verksamhet? organised by the Museum of Västernorrland in Härnosand (3 October 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf took part in a lunch sponsored by the Friends of Sandbyborg at Linnaeus University’s training excavation site of Gamla Skogsby, followed by participating in a discussion panel to discuss ‘future archaeology’ in relation to the ongoing excavations (4 October 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf took part in the annual meeting of the Academic Advisory Board of the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology (LEIZA) in Mainz, Germany. He also contributed to the Board’s retreat held one day later near Mainz (14-15 October 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf, Anders Högberg, Sarah May, Emily Hanscam, and Helena Rydén discussed their present priorities with colleagues at Malmö University interested in learning more about the work of the Chair with a view towards future collaboration (17 October 2023).

Anders Högberg presented a paper on “Participatory futures making and heritage processes” (co-authored with Gustav Wollentz) for colleagues at Malmö University (17 October 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf lectured for three hours on “Cultural and heritage tourism – making choices for the future” for 3 students taking the advanced-level course on Tourism and Sustainability in the Anthropocene 15 credits in Tourism and Recreation Studies at Linnaeus University, Kalmar (24 October 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf co-run a full-day workshop in Stockholm with 12 national heritage experts attending, forming part of a project on cultural heritage compensation for the Swedish Transport Adminstration (25 October 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf presented a talk entitled “Varför hantering av kärnavfall behöver kunskap om kultur” for almost 30 attendants of the Culture Breakfast organised by the Municipality of Kalmar (14 November 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf was interviewed about Heritage Futures for TV station Dubai One in Dubai, UAE (27 November 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf signed the “Global Call to Put Cultural Heritage, Arts and Creative Sectors at the Heart of Climate Action.” This is a global call to the UNFCCC to include cultural heritage, the arts and creative sectors in climate policy, at the time of COP28 held in December 2023 in Dubai.

Cornelius Holtorf attended of the Resilience Hub programme at COP 28, held in Dubai, the following sessions

  • Preserving Our Legacy: Climate resilience for culture and heritage, hosted by the Climate Heritage Network (CHN) and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)  (3 December 2023)
  • How Creativity Can Build Resilient Communities (9 December 2023)

Cornelius Holtorf, Anders Högberg, and Ulrika Söderström attended a lecture by Marcy Rockman on “The Radical Importance of Now in Linking Archaeology and Climate Change” organised by the Swedigarch project (6 December 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf, Anders Högberg, and Gustav Wollentz contributed to an informal meeting of a small group of international specialists in heritage and foresight convened by Alison Heritage of ICCROM (8 December 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf participated in a meeting of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Interpretation and Presentation (ICIP) to discuss future strategy addressing contemporary conflicts (13 December 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf took part in the virtual informal consultations on the UN Summit of the Future arranged by the Co-facilitators of the preparatory process, the Permanent Representatives to the United Nations of Germany and Namibia (13 December 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf lectured for a class of undergraduate students in Archaeology on “Archaeology, Climate, and Sustainability” (15 December 2023).

Cornelius Holtorf lectured for a class of undergraduate students in Cultural Policy on “Global Cultural Policy” (19 December 2023).

Pact for the future

2023-12-16

Our Chair made a written submission today for the UN Pact for the Future, to be drafted this spring and due to be accepted next September at the UN Summit of the Future.The full submission is available online (https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/sof-unesco-chair-heritage-futures-input-zero-draft-pact-for-future.pdf). It stated among others:

“The Pact of the Future’s Chapeau should explicitly recognise the cultural condition of humanity.

“Climate change, world peace, artificial intelligence and other major challenges facing present and future generations are affected by, and affect, the way human beings, as members of specific communities, live their lives and make sense of the world, of themselves, and of each other. This is the important realm of human culture—going far beyond the attention sometimes given to cultural rights, indigenous cultures, the cultural and creative sector, and culture-driven development.

“To date, the cultural condition of humanity has seldom been harnessed, or comprehensively addressed, in global policy documents. This should change with the Pact for the Future, defining the world’s agenda for the future.

“Culture guides people’s goals, the values and ideas that govern their behaviour, and how they communicate and to whom. Culture and cultural heritage inform human trust, felt loyalties and senses of belonging, whether that is to specific places, to specific communities, to higher beings, or to their own species.

“Understanding culture is a key capacity for increasing human well-being in the future. Culture must be guiding all actions inspired by the Pact for the Future. We welcome a UN Special Envoy for Future Generations and an Inter­governmental Forum for Future Generations which must have a strong mandate to work with culture and adequate cultural expertise in their teams of experts.

“Culture, including cultural heritage, is located at the intersection of past legacies and tomorrow’s possibilities. It changes – and needs to change – as the world changes: different futures imply new ways of being human and new narratives about the human past. Culture is therefore a key competence to be included explicitly when humanity unites to address the challenges for the world in a global Pact for the Future and in a Post-2030 Agenda.”

Keynote lecture on Heritage Futures and Futures Literacy

2023-12-15

On Wednesday 13 December 2023, Anders Högberg was invited by University of Ferrara to give a keynote lecture on the topic “Heritage Futures and Futures Literacy. New roles for heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies”.

The keynote was presented at the Kaleidoscope of Sustainability, 5th Annual Kick-off Symposium of the PhD programme Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing. It is a program that focuses on the research and training of young scholars interested in a multidisciplinary approach to sustainability and wellbeing. It is an impressive inter-disciplinary research school set-up be the University of Ferrara in co-operation with a wide range of universities from around the globe. It attracts PhD-students from the Humanities, Social Science, Economics, Law, Architecture, Urban Planning, Engineering, Chemical Sciences, and Biomedical Sciences.

Anders Högberg

Anders Högberg, Professor of Archaeology UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

 

World Futures Day 4 December UNESCO

2023-12-07

Cornelius Holtorf and Helena Rydén celebrated UNESCO World Futures Day 2023 #FuturesDay at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, by joining the global conversation on futures and foresight: Building Inclusive Societies through Futures Literacy & Foresight.

https://www.unesco.org/…/celebration-world-futures-day…

The event was well attended, both in Paris and online.

WFD Paris 2023

World Futures Day in Paris, UNESCO 2023. The day ended with experimental future-oriented approaches, by Pedro De Senna, Cornelius Holtorf and Laura Watts. You can see the recording here https://webcast.unesco.org/events/2023-12-WFD/ (starts at ca 3:23:00). 

WFD 2023 Paris

Linnaeus University made an impact!

Dubai Future Forum

2023-11-28

Cornelius Holtorf was invited to attend and speak at the Dubai Future Forum in Dubai, UAE. (27-28 November 2023). A total of 150 invited speakers presented in some 70 sessions, with ca 800 participants from close to 100 countries. The conference ended only two days before the start of COP28 and some participants stayed on.

As you can see on the image, I was wearing my UNESCO badge for global peace. Otherwise, various ongoing wars did not feature much during the entire event.

Close to 100 people attended our session, which was entitled Heritage Futures: How Does Culture Shape Tomorrow? In the session we wanted to introduce the concept of heritage futures to the global futurists:

This session is about ‘Heritage Futures’ which stands at the intersection of past legacies and tomorrow’s possibilities. We will discuss how culture shapes the world of tomorrow. Heritage is not just about conserving relics and memories of the past, but about making them resonate in an evolving world – and learning new ways to approach the future through care.

A recording of the session is now available on YouTube.

Other highlights of the conference included otherwise the experience of futures thinking in Dubai where the leadership has been developing ambitious futures programmes for many decades. This includes not only infrastructure and technology projects but also the Dubai Future Foundation and the Museum of the Future where the conference took place. Much of this rests on the income from oil which was discovered here as late as 1958 and enabled the country to have a stunning development. By 2071, the UAE aspires to be “the best country of the world,” as Ohood Al Roumi, the country’s Minister of the Future put it.

Although people were mentioned frequently, the themes of most of the keynotes and general panels revolved around technology (incl space and AI), energy (but not much on oil!), business, policy-making, health and food. There was very little about understanding people and appreciating various cultural ways of making sense of the world.

Some memorable quotes:

“We need to have the future at the table as well as on the menue,” Angela Wilkinson, World Energy Council

“Most countries don’t have long-term goals,” Sophie Howe, first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

“What matters is not the assets but their value,” Michael Clark, Mastercard

“Create the future, not just adapt!”, Adam Kahane, Reos Partners

“Our best futures need your magic as an alchemist,” Sarah de Vanzo, Pierre Fabre

“The future belongs to those who dare to imagine it,” David Alabo, digital artist

“If we are following trends, we are too late,” Benjamin Moncrieffe, Jaguar Land Rover

Perhaps most importantly, at least from my perspective, we were briefed in one session on the run-up to the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024. If anybody else is interested, click here for more information and the chance to sign up for continuous information provided by the School of International Futures and Foundations for Tomorrow.

Progress Report 2022/2023

2023-11-27

This report covers the sixth year of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University. Among the highlights of the year were several global initiatives which our Chair could influence with its distinctive perspective on heritage futures that becomes ever better known. This included the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development MONDIACULT 2022 in Mexico City at the end of September. The conference established the significance of culture as a global public good and called for the inclusion of culture as a stand-along goal in the post-2030 international development agenda.

Progress Report 2022/2023

Progress Report 2022/2023

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Cornelius Holtorf

Cornelius Holtorf at UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development MONDIACULT 2022 in Mexico City. The conference was attended by more than 100 ministers of culture, but also representatives from over 150 intergovernmental organizations, UNESCO partners, civil society, and some of the other UNESCO Chairs in the field of culture.

A topic that remains significant in our work is memory across generations related to repositories of nuclear waste. In this context, Sarah May co-edited a new volume on Toxic heritage, and Anders Högberg and I published a paper on “Nuclear Waste as Critical Heritage” that in some ways constitutes a conclusion of our decade-long research on these issues. Among the research projects listed below is a range of exciting new empirical research Chair members have been involved in over the past year.

There were also several opportunities to meet and collaborate with other UNESCO Chairholders from different corners of the world. These are important occasions as they pave the way for global collaborations in new areas.

Please get in touch if you have any comments or suggestions!

Cornelius Holtorf, Professor of Archaeology, and holder of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures