UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Embracing Change

2024-04-18

I presented a keynote lecture entitled “Embracing Change: Cultural Heritage and Regeneration” for the 2024 International Forum on Cultural Heritage: Sustainability and Resilience hosted by the Asian Network of Industrial Heritage in Taiwan.

The event was part of the 2024 International Day of Monuments and Sites on 18 April, this year dedicated to the theme “Disasters and Conflicts through the Lens of the Venice Charter”. The forum aimed to explore sustainable practices and the resilience and adaptability of cultural heritage in the face of contemporary challenges.

The audience comprised 55 participants on site and additional 70 participating online via Facebook on Youtube.

My talk in the session on Sustainability and Futures focused on the following issues:

“Disasters and conflicts are the outcome of societal failures to take sufficient precautions, respond adequately to emerging events, or behave appropriately peacefully towards each other. Their impact is perceived as worse if acceptance of change is low. I argue that all this can be improved by an updated perception of (world) cultural heritage that is based on concepts of renewal and regeneration rather than conservation and restoration, as it is, for example, still advocated in the 1964 Venice Charter. Narratives of change over time, exemplified by ever-changing cultural heritage, are likely able to improve resilience and preparedness for transformations in future societies. They can also facilitate a new more pan-human or indeed post-human understanding of our shared world. As Tim Ingold (2024) wrote recently, cultural heritage should not be seen as an inheritance to be transmitted from one generation to the next but as a living and perduring process of continuous renewal generating social life under varying circumstances over time.“

Climate Change and Coastal Erosion

2023-04-06

Cornelius Holtorf was invited to Norwich in the UK to attend a British Academy-funded conference and expert workshop on Measuring Loss and Damage to Heritage from Climate Change for Effective Policy Reporting at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Holtorf argued in favour of replacing the emphasis on ‘loss and damage’ with a stronger appreciation of the potential use of heritage for enhancing people’s well-being in the face of climate change and its implications. But another focus of the 2-day discussions was how to measure the loss of culture and heritage so that it can be included in high-level climate discussions.

Food heritage is partly intangible and selling points are mobile – a good thing when the coast is eroding rapidly.

The days of discussion were followed by an excursion to the coast of Norfolk to witness coastal erosion and get engaged in informal discussions on the mobility of cultural heritage and peoples’ lives under changing conditions.

 

Our World Heritage

2021-06-16

Cornelius Holtorf presented in two sessions dedicated to New Heritage Approaches, arranged in the context of the global campaign Our World Heritage.

On 14 June 2021, he presented and discussed the question “Which heritage will benefit future generations?” in a session on Modern, contemporary and future heritage, attended by a global audience of more than 40.

On 16 June 2021, he presented and discussed “Cultural Heritage Strengthening Human Resilience” in a session on Heritage Sustainability, Resilience and the Agenda 2030. The session formed concurrently part of the 6th Heritage Forum of Central Europe. 

“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.