UNESCO

Cornelius Holtorf was the invited keynote lecturer at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG), one of the biggest archaeological conferences in the UK, held this year at the University of Chester. In front of an audience of ca 250 students and academics from the UK and abroad he presented on 17 December 2018 The Antiquity Lecture entitled “Applied Archaeology: From Historical Development to Sustainable Development“.

The Prezi of the presentation is available here.

For the first time in the history of Kalmar Country Museum’s work with the time travel method, two groups of participants have been travelling to the year 2068, discussing future heritage and associated key questions about the present. This is one of a series of development projects commissioned by the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures.

Soon we will not only receive a full report about the lessons learned, but there will also be a short film documenting how a school class travelled to the future (and back). For now, read more in the report in the local newspaper Östra Småland and on the regional news site of Swedish Television.

Researchers of the CoHERE project created an immersive experience for heritage experts from European museums, to tackle a difficult scenario that might exist in our future. Using speculative design and design fiction methods, they imagined a future where museums can no longer keep their full collections and must delete 20% every year. To determine what to delete and how this challenge would affect the visitors’ museum experience of the future, on the day of the workshop, the participating experts together formed the Deletion Bureau… A very interesting workshop model!

The first progress report of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures for the period 09/2017-08/2018 is now ready!

Progress report 09/2017-08/2018 (1734 KB (A smaller file in reduced quality is available here (918 KB))

In this report, we document the progress made by the entire team over our first year of activities. Please get in touch if you have any comments or suggestions!

Cornelius Holtorf organised and ran a 90 min workshop on Managing Heritage Futures for more than 20 heritage professionals at the conference of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites on Critical Issues in Heritage Interpretation and Sustainable Tourism held at Florence, Italy, 23-25 October 2018 (24 October 2018)

Cornelius Holtorf has been accepted as an Associative Member of ICORP, the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee of Risk Preparedness.

The goals of the Committee are to enhance the state of preparedness within the heritage institutions and professions in relation to disasters of natural or human origin, and to promote better integration of the protection of heritage structures, sites or areas into national, local as well as international disaster management, including mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities.

Cornelius Holtorf, Anders Högberg and Sarah May attended an extended Knowledge Exchange Workshop with the Heritage Futures Project in Orford Ness, Sussex, UK, 1-4 October 2018. The workshop covered issues to do with transformation and loss of heritage over time, bringing together some 40 participants from various universities and heritage agencies in the UK and beyond.

Exploring the 20th century heritage of Orford Ness

As part of the event, Holtorf chaired a discussion on “Managing heritage: averting loss vs embracing change”, whereas May chaired a discussion on “More heritage: coping with profusion”.