Digital meets Culture

Lugano, 23-24-25 October 2025 (also available online access)

Beyond Borders is an initiative of the SECreTOUR project, made of three appointments on 23-24-25 October 2025, aiming to explore opportunities, initatives and experiences about sustainable cultural tourism, in the light of challenges and opportunities posed by cross-border actions.

On Thrusday 23/10/2025: Public workshop on Cross-Border Collaboration and Macro-Regions for Cultural Tourism

The workshop gathers representatives of the SECreTour consortium, as well as international invitees from organizations in the fields of heritage and tourism, whose contributions will be guided by the following goals:

Understanding the concerned public activities, challenges and dynamics faced by EU projects on cross-border tourism;
Defining guidelines and operational models for cooperation in the tourism and heritage field;
Reinforcing cross-border collaborations in the context of the SECreTour pilots;
Developing synergies between SECreTour and other similar EU projects.

Online participation will be available, too.

On Friday 24/10/2025: Visit of the sites of the Monte San Giorgio SECreTOUR pilot following the Miraculous Catch itinerary

Monte San Giorgio is pole of knowledge for territorial sustainable development.

Situated between Italy and Tessin, inside the heart of Europe, it is nowadays a UNESCO natural site, very rich in cultural heritage.

The Miraculous Catch itinerary will develop through the sites of the SECreTOUR pilot, namely: Riva San Vitale – Meride – Serpiano – Brusino Arsizio – Morcote

On Saturday 25/10/2025: Beyond Borders Hackathon

The event is organised in collaboration with Europeana, Photoconsortium International Association, the UNESCO Chair of the Università della Svizzera Italiana in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites and the UNESCO Chair of the University of Genoa in Anthropology of Health, Biosphere and Healing Systems.

The hackathon is focused on reusing open access cultural collections for promoting cultural tourism.

Young creatives and students are invited to deliver creative proposals using the vast collections available on the Europeana website, inspired by SECreTOUR’s mission to promote sustainable, engaging and creative tourism as a driver for a better future in rural and remote areas.

Full agenda and registration to the Hackathon is available online.

The three appointments are hosted by Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), a partner of the SECreTOUR consortium.

SECreTOUR is a research and innovation action funded under the Horizon Europe Programme of the EU.

Follow SECreTour online also on the SECreTour project’s website.

The new campaign led by Europeana aims at supporting EU Member States in 3D digitisation, preservation and reuse

‘Twin it! Part II’ campaign for 3D cultural heritage

Building on the momentum of Twin it! 3D for Europe’s Culture (June 2023 – June 2024), the Europeana Initiative and the European Commission launched Twin it! Part II campaign to run during the Polish, Danish and Cypriot Rotating Presidencies of the Council of the EU.

The Twin it! campaign mobilised each of the 27 EU Ministries in charge of culture to submit one 3D digitised heritage asset to the common European data space for cultural heritage, deployed by the Europeana Initiative, resulting in a collection of 37 high-quality 3D models representing buildings, sites and objects from all over Europe.

The Part II is a next chapter that aims to further support EU Member States in their 3D digitisation and preservation efforts — now with a sharper focus on how the digitised assets will be used, to further unlock the power of 3D digitisation by driving meaningful reuse across sectors to expand the reach and impact of cultural data, and boost innovation and competitiveness across the cultural heritage ecosystem.

In Twin it! Part II, Ministries of Culture of the European Union Member States are invited to collaborate with their national cultural institutions to submit at least one high-quality 3D-digitised heritage asset to the data space indicating clearly the proposed reuse intent, along with additional data, paradata and metadata.

A variety of initiatives are currently being deployed by Europeana and its partner organizations, to support the CH sector in joining the effort, such as awareness campaigns, guidelines, online training, informative cafes, capacity building events and other satellite actions.

Twin it! Part II will culminate in a high-level final event in Cyprus, where Ministers will showcase their submitted 3D assets and share their vision for reuse. It will also engage creators, developers, and cultural heritage enthusiasts to explore innovative ways to reuse the collected 3D models.

The event, taking place in Lugano (Switzerland) on 25th October 2025, was open to students and digital creators

Beyond Borders Hackathon – reusing open access cultural collections for sustainable tourism

As part of a cooperation agreement, EUreka3D initiative is collaborating with SECreTour project to explore how digital cultural heritage can support local promotion and tourism, particularly by reusing open cultural collections to create engaging materials and storytelling about places and communities.

Project SECreTour organized, together with Photoconsortium, Europeana, UNESCO Chair of the Università della Svizzera Italiana in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in world heritage sites and UNESCO Chair of the Università di Genova in Anthropology of Health, Biosphere and Healing Systems, a Hackathon in Lugano, addressing young creatives and students to deliver a creative proposal using the vast collections available on the Europeana website, inspired by SECreTour’s mission to promote sustainable, engaging and creative tourism as a driver for a better future in rural and remote areas.

: Presenting the stories of Monte San Giorgio

: Participants to the Hackathon

: Participants at work

: Prof. Alexandra Bitusikova (Matej Bel university) and Matevz Straus (Arctur)

: Winning teams

: Group photo with organizers

EUreka3D-XR resources and tools were also presented to participants, along with the capacity building resources and activities organized by the project that could be of interest for current and prospect cultural heritage professionals.

The Processions of Mendrisio, by Heinz Plenge, CC BY-SA.

at arebyte's Digital Art Centre (London), 12th September - 21st December 2025

Prophecy – by Auriea Harvey

photo credit: Devika Bilimoria

(THIS ROOM IS A SCULPTURE CALLED) PROPHECY is a body of newly commissioned work by pioneering multi-media artist Auriea Harvey. Curated by Pita Arreola, PROPHECY is an allegorical rendering of a spiritual journey, charting a course to reclaim grace and unity amid a landscape of disconnection and collective suffering. At its core lies a deep yearning for empathy amongst fractured societies.

These themes resonate with the concerns of British mystic, artist, and poet William Blake (1757–1827), who more than two hundred years ago created a series of engraved prophetic books that in their own interdisciplinary capacity combined poetry and vivid imagery. Rooted in his exposure to London’s rapid and exploitative urbanisation and his visionary experiences, Blake came to view himself as a prophet, using his art to critique the moral, political, and spiritual conditions of his time.

photo credit: Devika Bilimoria

Imbued with the same radical charge, PROPHECY carves its own mystical immersive system through a pollination of figures from Catholic faith with epic tales drawn from Greek mythos. The resulting exhibition is constructed as a mythic technological infrastructure made up of individual and interconnected digital artworks that are suggestive of religious architecture. This spatial arrangement, along with the presence of saintly figures in the galleries, seeks to evoke a moment of introspective reflection in the audience. Through this composition, Harvey presents the virtues and flaws that characterise a society ruled by technological frameworks, and invites us to explore the potential of spirituality and collective human action to emancipate oneself from algorithmic control.

Bringing together motion capture, holograms, AI-generated choreography and 3D printing within an interactive installation spanning three immersive chambers, PROPHECY is a counterstrategy to the pacifying impacts that contemporary technologies that AI and social media have on our perception of reality, calling for a rediscovery of spirituality and the empowerment of collective action. Harvey offers a poetic resistance to digital opacity, proposing that prophecy in the 21st century might not be about prediction, but about feeling, embodiment, and transforming the tools that govern us.

photo credit: Devika Bilimoria

Learn more: https://www.arebyte.com/auriea-harvey

Promote your organisation’s skills and heritage on the EU MetaHeritage Map!

Time Machine Organization is delighted to invite organisations to join MetaHeritage, a pioneering European initiative committed to promoting sustainable heritage development through digital innovation and cross-regional collaboration. Participation in the MetaHeritage network is completely free of charge.

By joining, organisations can:

Gain visibility and recognition on the interactive project map
Build networks and collaborations with experts and institutions across Europe
Access innovation, tools, and best practices for heritage projects
Contribute to shaping the future of cultural heritage policies and practices

How to join?
Fill in the questionnaire (available in multiple languages) here: https://metaheritage.eu/eu-survey/
Register for free to access the community platform here: https://metaheritage.eu/register/

Please note: The survey was translated using AI tools, so some phrasing may appear abstract but remains understandable. Feedback can be shared via the contact details on the website.

Brussels, 21-23 January 2026

3D-4CH Winter School

We’re excited to announce the 3D-4CH Winter School, taking place from 21 to 23 January 2026 at the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels.

This three-day event is tailored for cultural heritage professionals, from museum teams to digitisation specialists, who want to deepen their knowledge and hands-on experience with 3D technologies.

What to Expect

The Winter School will offer a dynamic mix of:

Keynotes from leading voices in digital and cultural heritage
Hands-on sessions featuring the latest 3D tools, techniques, and workflows
Collaborative learning designed to foster knowledge exchange and build lasting connections

Organised in cooperation with the Twin it! Part II campaign by the Europeana Foundation and the European Commission, the Winter School is part of the 3D-4CH project’s broader mission: building a European Online Competence Centre for 3D cultural heritage. This initiative aims to support institutions and individuals across Europe in navigating the digital shift with confidence and skill.

Whether you’re just getting started with 3D or are already well along your digitisation journey, the Winter School is your opportunity to explore new tools, share best practices, and shape the future of digital heritage.

More info and programme: https://www.3d4ch-competencecentre.eu/trainings/3d-4ch-winter-school

Bursa, 16-17 September 2025

SECreTour participation in the REMODEL Summer School

The SECreTOUR project participated in the Summer School organised by the REMODEL project on 16-17 September 2025 in Bursa, Türkiye.

The REMODEL Team and the projects invited at the Summer School

The REMODEL Summer School «Innovative Business Solutions for the Food and Beverage Industry» was held at the premises of the Bursa Uludağ University and it was chaired by Prof. Dr. Aylin Poroy Arsoy, Coordinator of the REMODEL project.

The lecture of SECreTOUR was delivered by the Networking Manager of the project. The presentation is available here for free download.

Antonella Fresa, the SECreTOUR representative at the Summer School

The REMODEL project participates in the SECreTOUR Nework and it was nice to meet at the Summer School with the representative of VERNE, another project that participates in the Network.

Juanita Blue, representative of the VERNE project

The encounter has been a very good opportunity to exchange ideas about the way that the participating projects are taking to experiment innovative business models in the light to promoting sustainable cultural tourism.

Follow SECreTour online also on the SECreTour project’s website.

test fields onsite proved already successful for an AR tour of the ancient Celtic remnains that enhances visitor experience

EUreka3D-XR pilot scenario in Bibracte progressing full steam

EUreka3D-XR partners Bibracte and NTUA School of Electrical and Computer Engineering are jointly progressing towards the creation of two XR tools applied to the French archaeological site. The pilot is named “The AR narrative of the hidden side of Bibracte archaeological site” and is about visiting the archaeological site of the Celtic city of Bibracte (France) and being able to understand the process of excavations, the reconstructed aspect of buildings and the artefacts that were retrieved by archaeologists in different zones of the site, by following a map available on a mobile app.

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The main challenge of mediating with visitors to the Bibracte archaeological site is to enable them to see and understand the almost invisible remains and realities on the site. The EUreka3D-XR pilot and the tools developedby NTUA offer a more comprehensive and immersive response to this challenge, directly on the archaeological site.

Thanks to AR, visitors will be able to view 3D models of terrain and objects linked to their discovery context and enriched with complementary media. This visit will allow them to discover ‘the hidden side of Bibracte’ by having access to missing elements, not visible in situ or not directly accessible to the senses and intellect.

In September 2025, technical partners National Technical University of Athens visited Bibracte for a first round of testing onsite and for progressing with the pilot’s development in sight of the first prototype release in November 2025.

Field tests have focused on the AR Tour Experience application and the immersive rendering of the 3D models associated to the test point of interest in the Bibracte site, and while the the first results are encouraging, some adjustments still need to be done to improve the user experience, suggesting further development and problem-solving on the mobile application and its back-end platform, according to an agile and iterative methodology that is based on the feedback collected during the meeting onsite.

More evaluation of the prototypes is planned in the coming months, engaging various stakeholders internal and external to the project consortium. Basing on user feedback, the full joint team of NTUA and Bibracte is willing to offer an innovative tool serving heritage mediation, to advance the application of XR tools and offer a good user experience, aiming that both the tools and the scenario are useful for cultural heritage institutions.

Read more about the Pilot on project website: www.eureka3d-xr.eu

Blog Bibracte (French language): https://www.bibracte.fr/actualite/projet-eureka3d-xr-test-de-lapplication-ar-tour-experience

Lugano (Switzerland), 25th October 2025

Beyond Borders Hackathon

SECreTour project, together with Photoconsortium, Europeana, UNESCO Chair of the Università della Svizzera Italiana in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in world heritage sites and UNESCO Chair of the Università di Genova in Anthropology of Health, Biosphere and Healing Systems, organized on 25th October 2025 in Lugano a exciting day of creativity and reflections about the role of open access collections in digital storytelling supporting heritage tourism (natural, cultural and intangible).

Beyond Borders Hackathon invited university students and young digital creators interested in digital cultural heritage, social science and humanities, cultural promotion and sustainable tourism to deliver a creative proposal using the vast collections available on the Europeana website, inspired by SECreTour’s mission to promote sustainable, engaging and creative tourism as a driver for a better future in rural and remote areas.

The general theme is “Exploring Insubria, and other cultural corridors through digital heritage collections“.

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Participants explored Europeana’s open-access collections and reusable cultural datasets and identify themes linked with cross-border heritage and identities. The scope of the creative works is to design novel approaches to communicate the concept of geocultural heritage of Insubria and deliver stories incorporating digital storytelling, participatory approaches, responsible tourism and traditions from rural communities.

The Processions of Mendrisio, by Heinz Plenge, CC BY-SA.

September 17th - October 12th

Calendar of main events surrounding the UNFRAMED exhibition

Join the UN FRAMED experience through a series of exciting events that will help you dive into the digital modern art world:

September 17, 2025, 12:00–1:00 PM – Press conference for the exhibition UNFRAMED – Towards a New Reality (Bastione del Parlascio, Pisa).
September 19, 2025, 7:00–9:00 PM – Opening of the exhibition UNFRAMED – Towards a New Reality (Bastione del Parlascio, Pisa).
September 24, 2025, 4:00–8:30 PM – Interdisciplinary Summit Senses and Intelligences (Palatodisco, Pisa).
October 8, 2025, 10:00–1:00 PM (schools) and 4:00–7:00 PM – Conference Beyond the Frame – Critical Perspectives on Digital Art (Museum of Graphics, Pisa).
October 12, 2025, 5:30–8:00 PM – Closing ceremony of the UNFRAMED exhibition – Towards a New Reality (Bastione del Parlascio, Pisa).

Find more information at https://www.unframedshow.com/