UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Future generations in law

2024-10-09

In a new paper in the International Journal of Cultural Property, the Glasgow-based law scholar Andreas Giorgallis discusses the idea of protecting cultural heritage for the benefit of future generations in international cultural heritage law.

Giorgallis (2024: 1-2) points out that the idea of protecting cultural heritage to bequeath it to future generations is probably the most commonly cited rationale upon which legal regulation is justified. But nevertheless, law scholars hardly ever studied it. Instead, he notes, intergenerational concerns for cultural heritage “have migrated to other fields of studies, including heritage studies, cultural economics, museum studies, archaeology, and anthropology taking on sizable portions of the discourse”. Here, he also cites some of the work of authors associated with the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures.

Intriguingly, Giorgallis confirms (2024: 11) that none of the routine legislative pieces referring to future generations designates their exact identity nor does it determine their rights and obligations regarding cultural heritage.

Giorgallis also suggests (2024: 18) that “[a]ttempting to predict the tastes and priorities of future generations in cultural heritage is not an easy enterprise. The danger of imposing a majoritarian take on contemporary tastes in a rather paternalistic and neocolonial way is ever-present…” But this risk of presentism can be avoided by drawing on foresight and futures literacy – which is a capability our Chair is building among global heritage professionals.

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Giorgallis A. The idea of protecting cultural heritage for the benefit of future generations in international cultural heritage law. International Journal of Cultural Property. Published online 2024:1-24. doi:10.1017/S0940739124000171

German UNESCO Chairs Conference

2024-10-08

Cornelius Holtorf participated and presented the work of our Chair in the 2024 International UNESCO Chairs Conference at Leuphania University Lüneburg, Germany, dedicated to the theme “UNESCO Chairs’ Perspectives on Sustainable Development Goals” (7-9 October 2024).

Among the ca 60 participants were UNESCO Chairholders and team members of 10 German UNESCO Chairs as well as of ca. 10 international UNESCO Chairs from Canada, India, Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K., and several senior representatives of the German UNESCO Commission and its Secretariate in Bonn.

I participated on invitation of Michael Kloos, UNESCO Chair on Historic Urban Landscapes and Heritage Impact Assessments at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Various activities July – September 2024

2024-10-04

Cornelius Holtorf visited the activities with young people during Kalmar Town Festival, organized by Kalmar municipality’s cultural section under the label “Expedition Future” and inspired by our work in the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures (10 August 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf and Anders Högberg ran a Mini Futures Workshop for 30+ colleagues during the Kick-off meeting of the Department of Cultural Sciences at Linnaeus University, Sweden (20 August 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf sent comments and suggestions to the revised draft guidance note on ‘Climate action for living heritage’ to the UNESCO Living Heritage entitity (20 August 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf, Anders Högberg and Gustav Wollentz met with Alison Heritage and José Luiz Pedersoli at The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome to discuss mutual interests and future collaboration in the area of promoting futures-thinking and futures literacy in the global heritage sector (30 August 2024)

Cornelius Holtorf presented a talk on “Is Archaeology Ready to Address the Climate Heritage Paradox?” for an audience of 25+ attending the session on “Archaeologies of Climate Change? Current Issues and Future Directions” held at the 30th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Rome, Italy (31 August 2024)

Cornelius Holtorf attended an online symposium on “Nuclear Futures. Art, Speculation, Matter, Performance” arranged by Linköping University (11 September 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf took part in meetings of the Pledge Network, promoting strong references to future generations and their interests in the UN Summit of the Futures in September 2024 in New York and its aftermath (12 September 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf attended the report launch of the project “The Nuclear Spaces: Communities, Materialities and Locations (NuSPACES)” featuring speakers Sam Alberti (National Museums Scotland) and Elizabeth Norton (NDA) addressing questions of nuclear cultural heritage, held at the Science Museum, London, and online (18 September 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf participated in a side-event to the UN Summit of the Future organised by the Culture 2030 Goal Campaign and entitled “No Future Without Culture: Reflecting and Imagining on the Place of Culture in Delivering the Past for the Future” (20 September 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf followed online selected parts of the Action Days preceding the UN Summit of the Future, featuring, among others António Guterres, General-Secretary of the United Nations, Gabriella Ramos, the UNESCO Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences, Mamphela Ramphela, the former Co-Director of the Club of Rome, and Kim Stanley Robinson, the author of The Ministry for the Future (20-21 September 2024).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting in Cordoba, Spain, with Matthias Ripp, World Heritage Coordinator of Regensburg (Germany) and OWHC Regional Division Representative, discussing future collaborations (24 September).

Cornelius Holtorf contributed to a meeting of cirka 30 international experts and UNESCO staff finalising a guidance note on Safeguarding intangible cultural and climate change. The expert meeting was chaired by Fumiko Ohinata, Secretary of the UNESCO 2003 Convention and held digitally on 25-26 September 2024.

Inspirational day in Karlskrona

2024-10-01

On the 16th of September Gustav Wollentz presented as an invited speaker on an inspirational day for the World Heritage Site “Naval Port of Karlskrona”. Around 110 people participated from the region, including representatives from the County Administrative Board, museum professionals, researchers from the university, local politicians, and more. The focus on Gustav’s presentation was how Strategic Foresight can benefit a sustainable development of a World Heritage Site. Examples were provided from the work that Gustav has been carrying out with ICCROM, where he has been working to anticipate futures for heritage.

Gustav also participated in a panel discussion where the focus was on how to apply methods from Strategic Foresight when managing a World Heritage Site. We were discussing how to make this kind of work more participatory, so that the futures anticipated would reflect an increasingly diverse society rather than very limited needs and aspirations.  We were also discussing some key concepts in Foresight, such as the value in “wild cards” and the difference between “used futures” (futures that have been reused over and over again to no success) and “novel futures” (the future that we may never have anticipated before).

There is indeed an increasing interest in how Foresight and anticipation can benefit heritage management!

Picture Gustav 16 Sept Karlskrona
Gustav Wollentz
Dr Gustav Wollentz is a member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures. He is a Senior Lecturer at Linnaeus University with a particular focus on critical heritage studies. He is also a consultant for ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property). Former director at NCK, The Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning and Creativity.

Climate Heritage Breakthrough

2024-09-28

Congrats to the Climate Heritage Network has achieved a major breakthrough by securing a total of $ 1.5 million in private funding for a series of initiatives.

Most notably, the “Imagining Low Carbon, Just, Climate Resilient Futures through Culture and Heritage” Project” will address two complementary problems. While contemporary climate planning suffers from a pervasive failure to help people imagine plausible ways of living that are not wedded to the carbon economy and the systems that support it, cultural heritage practice is not sufficiently attentive to address the climate change crisis at a large enough scale. By increasing culture-based climate action, transforming climate policy via cultural heritage, and supporting a range of partner communities, funding from the Mellon Foundation will address both issues at once.

The new funding for this and a number of additional smaller projects, means that the Climate Heritage Network is not only able to scale-up its activities but also continues to extend its agenda towards finding new roles for cultural heritage in the context of the climate change crisis. It is a good example why cultural futures can make us hopeful!

The UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures is a sustaining member of the Climate Heritage Network.

Heritage Futures for World Heritage Cities

2024-09-25

In the context of the 17th World Congress of the Organisation of World Heritage Cities (OWHC) in Cordoba, Spain, 24-27 September 2024, Cornelius Holtorf ran a Heritage Futures Workshop for 21 elected politicians and world heritage managers from the Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the US.

Two days before the workshop, UN member states had assembled in New York for the UN Summit of the Future where they passed a joint Pact for the Future. The Pact does not only acknowledge culture as an “integral component of sustainable development” but also calls for more “evidence-based planning and foresight” to improve the wellbeing of current and future generations. That makes developing modes of long-term governance and futures literacy even more urgent for the cultural heritage sector and World Heritage.

In our participative workshop (one group pictured at work above), we were together exploring in detail how cultural heritage relates to specific futures and how futures thinking can enhance the management of World Heritage Cities today. Participants enhanced their capability of imagining alternative futures and reflected on how their World Heritage Cities can contribute to finding innovative solutions for a better tomorrow.

During the Congress we also enjoyed a festive occasion in the Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba including speeches by local, regional, and national politicians and a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony #9.

Why Cultural Futures Make Us Hopeful

2024-09-19

I chaired and presented in a session entitled “Why Cultural Futures Make us Hopeful” at the Building Hopeful Futures Festival, a virtual side-event in the run-up to the UN Summit of the Future in New York (19 September 2024).

I was joined by the global artist Kai Altmann (XLE.LIFE) and the heritage professional Alison Heritage (ICCROM, Rome, Heritage Foresight initiative). Almost 40 people attended the session live.

This session explored the role of culture in anticipation and futures thinking. We discussed why a global Pact for the Future should take culture seriously, what we can learn from transcultural futurisms, and how cultural heritage can be a tool for future-making.

In my presentation, I argued that building better futures for human beings benefits from acknowledging the importance of culture for being human.

I gave three reasons why culture is so important in relation to future-making: it helps us (1) thinking across generations, (2) understanding how people are making sense of the world which informs how they act, and (3) asking in what future we all want to live.

Wicked Problems for Archaeologists

2024-09-01

John Schofield’s new book Wicked Problems for Archaeologists. Heritage as Transformative Practice (OUP, 2024, 300pp.) was prompted by Shadreck Chirikure’s 2021 question: “Why is it that archaeology—a discipline that deals with human experience over the long term—is failing to achieve its potential in tackling global challenges?” (259). Schofield’s discussion and answer to this question reflects a view that is rather innovative, and it constitutes a watershed for archaeology.

Although, over the years, there have been quite a few book-length accounts of archaeology’s aims in society and how to reach them, Schofield takes leadership now and offers a new mission and direction for the entire team of Archaeologists. The take on archaeology advocated by Schofield, whose battle cry is “Archaeologists assemble!” (298), is not Marxist but it nevertheless is critical, in the sense that the discipline is meant to address some of the world’s most wicked problems such as climate change, environmental pollution, health and well-being, social justice, and conflict: archaeologists and heritage practitioners can help make the world a fairer, safer, and healthier place for everybody (299).

The volume presents a critical overview of where archaeology is positioned right now in relation to these wicked problems and how archaeologists could enhance their own contribution to solving them in the future. Schofield’s agenda is intellectual but in equal measure it is also about policy, leadership, social-planetary boundaries, and sustainable development goals (SDGs)… In his perspective, key terms that should guide archaeologists include transdisciplinary collaboration, the imagination, small wins, and policy entrepreneurship.

This is an agenda I like a lot, and it is close to my own approach to archaeology using labels such as ‘applied archaeology’ and ‘heritage futures’. As Schofield asks his student readers (302): how can archaeologists do more to persuade doubters that archaeology is central to helping understand and resolve many of the world’s greatest challenges? Is archaeology not about the past, but about the present and the future?

Speculative historical marker in New York

2024-08-15

In relation to the forthcoming UN Summit of the Future, Tactical Public AR(t) created a specularive historical marker for New York.

Tactical Public AR(t) is a collaboration between an education, technology and social innovation specialist and a public art specialist. It uses Augmented Reality* to educate,  empower, and amplify. 

They invite young people from around the world to have their voice heard through an innovative way by creating speculative future historical messages related to the themes of the Summit of the Future. Many of these will be placed on augmented reality historical markers which will be located around the UN and New York City during the Summit of the Future.  They ask:

  • Which potential actions are most important to you, imagining that they will be commemorated?
  • What is your desired future?
  • What might it take to get there?

But isn’t it ironic that those advocating for “multi-generational decision-making” choose to make their point by using some of the most backward looking and generally least-appreciated forms of heritage… ?

Futuro House

2024-08-07

The Futuro House, designed by Matti Suuronen, is an icon of pop culture. It reflects the 1960s faith in technology, linked to space exploration, and the post-War experience of increasing leisure and constant economic groth. This particular house was used 1968-1986 as a restaurant on the esplanade of La Dèfense, the most futuristic part of Paris.

The future implied by the Futuro House marked a particular strong belief in progress and utopia – a past future we have trouble relating to, today.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, a Futuro House was recently found to be biodegrading due to cyanobacteria and archaea. So today, the building no longer evokes a bright future but is gradually fading away and presents challenges of conservation…

Maybe it was no coincidence that we came across this particular Futuro House in Marché Dauphine located in Saint-Ouen, the largest assemblage of antiques and flea markets in Paris? It seemed to fit in there rather well…