UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Preparing MONDIACULT 2025

2024-11-22

On 21 and 22 November 2024, Cornelius Holtorf was attending the Regional Consultation for Western Europe and North America in preparation of the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2025, to be held 29 September – 1 October in Barcelona, Spain. I was one of three UNESCO Chairs participating in the meeting.

The meeting was introduced by the Vice-minister of Culture of the Kingdom of Spain. Mr. Jordi Martí Grau who emphasized the rights of all citizens to culture and creative work, stressing the significance of education in that respect, and that “there cannot be sustainable development without culture”. Grau emphasized the rights of all citizens to culture.

The meeting was attended, among others, by the Assistant Director General for Culture (ADG Culture), UNESCO, Mr. Ernesto Ottone-Ramírez, and by representatives of Cultural Ministeries from many European countries, the U.S. and Canada. It was moderated by the representative of Andorra and featured simultaneous translation of all contributions between Spanish, English, and French.

In my own short address to the participants I emphasized the opportunities for culture, UNESCO and MONDIACULT arising from the 2024 UN Pact of the Futures. In conclusion, I suggested for MONDIACULT 2025 to

  1. integrate foresight, anticipation, and the benefits of ‘futures literacy’ in cultural policy around the world,
  2. promote the potential of culture and cultural heritage for globally addressing the needs of future generations in the context of change and transformation.

Note: an interesting background of global cultural policy development in relation to the work of UNESCO is given in Justin O’Connor’s 2024 essay on Global Cultural Policy at the Crossroads: Reflections on the Summit of the Future.

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?

The Future of Cultural Objects

2022-11-08

Cornelius Holtorf contributed to a course in challenge-based learning near Trento, Italy (8 November 2022). The course was organised by the The European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) where learners, teachers and researchers cooperate with society and businesses to solve real-life challenges. The challenge was put together by Francesca Odella of the University of Trento and focused on the future of cultural objects.

My presentation was held at the Trentino Folklife Museum in San Michele all’ Adige and entitled “Heritage Futures: how culture and heritage must change for the future”. Some students joint via link.

The Heritage-Climate Paradox

2022-01-26

In my presentation on “Risks for Peace Due to Promotion of Heritage”, given on 26 January 2022 at the global ICCROM conference Climate.Culture.Peace in a session on Culture, Climate and Drivers of Conflict, I introduced the Heritage-Climate Paradox in its two dimensions:

  1. Whereas heritage is often about conservation and timeless values, the climate crisis is about change and the transformation of our lives and many people’s livelihoods.
  2. Whereas heritage is about making cultural distinctions in space, contrasting US with THEM (often in terms of nations or ethnic groups), the climate crisis requires us to find global solutions and to promote global solidarity.

Here is the full abstract of my paper:

As the significance of culture and cultural heritage is gradually entering high-level discussions concerning sustainable development, I am cautioning against generalizing the view that culture and heritage necessarily benefit mitigation and adaptation related to climate change. Promoting seemingly timeless heritage derived from the past can make necessary transformations of inherited ways of life and livelihoods more difficult. At the same time, perceptions of exclusive cultural heritage may support ethnic pride and social exclusion. Both recent and historical examples show how perceptions and uses of cultural heritage can inflame violent conflicts between different cultural groups over power and territory. Promoting heritage can thus threaten peace and human rights, reduce socio-cultural cohesion and resilience, and effectively become a hinder for global human adaptation.