Digital meets Culture

Europeana 2025 held on 11-12 June 2025 under the patronage of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU!

EUreka3D-XR participates in Europeana conference 2025

EUreka3D-XR takes part in the Europeana Conference 2025, a hybrid event held under the patronage of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU. Europeana 2025 – preserve, protect, reuse will explore critical questions facing the digital heritage sector and society at large, and how the data space for cultural heritage can contribute to addressing them.

On the first day, Wednesday 11 June, the project participates in the moderated panel discussion Telling stories with tech: XR, 3D and AI for cultural heritage, together with experts representing EU-funded projects whose very diverse use cases and demonstrators show how content from Europeana and other online resources have been reused in impressive 3D and XR experiences.

On the second day, Thursday 12 June, Valentina Bachi, EUreka3D-XR project manager, delivers the ignite talk A question of competence, quality and infrastructure: the EUreka3D initiative, as part of the session 3D in practice: innovating, reimagining, protecting.

EUreka3D-XR is also featured at the conference through a video that offers an overview to the project. Other dissemination materials, such as the EUreka3D final booklet and a postcard promoting upcoming capacity building events, will be distributed to attendees.

EUreka3D-XR at the Europeana Conference 2025:

Day – 1 : Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Time: 04:30 PM
Moderated panel discussion: Telling stories with tech: XR, 3D and AI for cultural heritage
Auditorium & Foyer

Day – 2 : Thursday, June 12, 2025
Time: 11:30 AM
Ignite talk by Valentina Bachi: A question of competence, quality and infrastructure: the EUreka3D initiative
Session: 3D in practice: innovating, reimagining, protecting
Auditorium & Foyer

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

project presentation with video and dissemination materials at the important event on e-infrastructures

EUreka3D initiative presented at EGI 2025

The EUreka3D inititiave is presented in the EGI Conference, which takes place at the Palacio de la Magdalena in Santander, Spain from June 2nd to June 6th, 2025.

The project coordinator, Antonella Fresa, will deliver the speech Transforming the digital cultural heritage with 3D and XR: the EUreka3D initiative. The talk will focus on how both projects (EUreka3D and EUreka3D-XR) aim to support the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector, with a focus on 3D digitisation and management, and XR scenarios development for compelling narrative and reuse of cultural assets in digital format.

EUreka3D-XR is also featured at the conference through a video that offers an overview to the project. Other dissemination materials, such as a postcard promoting upcoming capacity building events, will be distributed to attendees.

At the annual EGI conference, international scientific communities, computing and service providers, European projects, security experts, community managers, and policymakers gather to advance research and innovation in data-intensive processing and analytics in a safe and open environment with room for in-depth discussion, new insights, and networking.

EUreka3D participation at the EGI Conference 2025:
Thursday, 5 June 2025
Session: Infrastructures for Scientific Collaboration: National & Thematic Perspectives 2, moderated by Smitesh Jain, EGI Foundation, Senior Innovation Management Specialist
Subsession: Transforming the digital cultural heritage with 3D and XR: the EUreka3D initiative, speech by Antonella Fresa, EUreka3D-XR project coordinator

The presentation starts from EUreka3D project’s achievements with the developing of the EUreka3D Data Hub powered by partner EGI, the digitization and aggregation of heritage collections on Europeana, the learning resources and capacity building programme and more. The continuation project EUreka3D-XR is then presented, highlighting its aim, its tools, scenarios and future plans.

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

Applications open on the 16th of June

2025 TownsWeb Digitisation Grant offers three £3,000 prizes

The TownsWeb Archiving Digitisation Grant is back for 2025, with grants of £3,000 ready to be awarded to three lucky winners.

Since launching the grant, TWA have awarded over £150,000 to support the digitisation of more than 120 collections. Now entering its eighth year, the grant continues to support organisations across the UK in safeguarding their invaluable heritage materials.

Applications open on 16th June 2025. To be among the first to receive the application form and other grant-related news, simply sign up for the TWA newsletter here.

Watch the official launch video featuring TownsWeb CEO, Paul Sugden, to learn more about this year’s grant:

The SECreTour Network is growing!

A new collaboration has started between the Breda University of Applied Sciences, the Cross-Re-Tour project and SECreTour.

Breda University of Applied Science (BUAS) is a specialist, personal, diverse, and inclusive university of applied sciences with 7,000 students, where personal innovative capacity is stimulated. BUAS’s vision is to be an international leading knowledge institute with industry- relevant, high quality, small-scaled and innovative education, and research. The domains of tourism, leisure, and hospitality as well as the domain of logistics and mobility are still at the core of their expertise. BUAS has developed into related domains, such as serious games and media. Its strength and uniqueness derive from their intense collaboration with key industry players in these fields. Research at BUAS has an interdisciplinary character. By joining forces – not only within their domains, but also with government, educational partners, and research institutes – they are capable of developing innovative solutions to topical questions in the industry.

You can find further information about the University at: https://www.buas.nl/

Cross-Re-Tour is an EU funded project, coordinated by BUAS, aimed at helping European tourism SMEs transition toward digitalization and sustainability, including adopting Circular Economy (CE) practices. It promotes the use and adaptation of existing green and digital solutions from other sectors to enhance tourism business operations. This is done by identifying knowledge gaps through online dialogues and a market scan of best practices in six key areas like energy, water, and transport, the introduction of a diagnostic tool and a knowledge hub to support solution adoption and foster collaboration between tourism businesses and other sectors. In the final phase, Cross-Tour provides funding and support to a mínimum of 80 projects led by tourism SMEs across eight countries, with an emphasis on innovation and scalability of green, digital and circular solutions.

You can find further information about Cross-Re-Tour at: https://crossretour.eu/

The themes addressed by the Cross-Re-Tour project and by the research carried out at BUAS are relevant also for the SECreTour action that is looking forward to establish further opportunities of collaboration and excchange of good practices.

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

The SECreTour team met with local communities on 13 May, 2025

SECreTour pilot about mining heritage in Idrija

Meeting with the Major of Idrija and the Director of the
Tourism Board

On the 13th of May 2025 representatives of partners of the SECreTour project met in Idrija to visit the places of the pilot coordinated by the Institute for Heritage Innovation in Idrija ID20.

The rich heritage of the mercury mine of Idrija has been listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, together with the intangible heritage of its exquisite tradition of laces. While men were in the mines, women were busy at home taking care of the family and producing wonderful handmade jewels.

Mining heritage and lace heritage connects with nature in the geopark of the Idrijca River.

The meetings were very interesting and profitable.

The delegation of SECreTour was hosted by the Mayor of Idrija Tomaž Vencelj, Valerija Božič Director of the Idrja Tourism Board (Zavod za turizem Idrija), Sanja Marija Pellis consultant for tourism, Tatjana Dizdarević Director of the Mercury Heritage Management Centre CUDHG.

Here below we provide a selection of the pictures taken during the enconters.

Meeting with the Director of the Mercury Heritage Management

The elevators of one of the mercury mine shaft

Meeting at the premises of ID20

Mercury mine shaft

Laces from Idrija

Suspension bridge connecting the two banks of the Idrijca River

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

20th May to 28th September, showcased at Jalón Ángel room (Grupo San Valero Building)

“Frankenstein: Scenographies. Isidro Ferrer Illustrates Mary Shelley”

Organized by Jalón Ángel Archive and USJ Culture, from May 20 to September 28, the exhibition “Frankenstein: Scenographies. Isidro Ferrer Illustrates Mary Shelley”.

The exhibition is by Aragonese designer and illustrator Isidro Ferrer, winner of the National Design Award in 2002 and the National Award for Best Children’s and Young Adult Illustrations from the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2006 (among other awards), and it will be open in the Jalón Ángel room of the Grupo San Valero Building.

As part of the official section of PHotoESPAÑA, the exhibition features the dioramas that Isidro Ferrer designed and built to illustrate one of the latest titles published by Ediciones USJ, “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.”

In the exhibition, it’s possible to enjoy each diorama and its interplay of light in detail, and the elaborate photographs of each diorama, just as they appear in the publication, transporting the viewer to the universe Shelley imagined.

Collaboration agreement has started between the SECreTour project and the Hotel La Romantica of Melide, in May 2025

New collaborations of SECreTour with the Swiss Diamond Boutique Hotel La Romantica

The SECreTour Network is growing!

A new collaboration has started between Hotel La Romantica and the SECreTour project.

The Hotel La Romantica in Melide (Switzerland) has joined the SECreTour Network, in the light ot its participation in the SECreTour pilot of Monte San Giorgio, coordinated by Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI).

The Hotel is hosting in its luxury structure a botanical garden orientated for sustainable tourism, developed in collaboration with the researchers of USI.

Autoctonous plants are grown and offered to visitors of the garden as a living introduction to the richness of the biodiversity of Monte San Giorgio.

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

From April 29th to June 15th 2025

New Urban Life outdoor exhibition in Helsinki City Centre

Trees from Heikinpuisto are moved to Heikinkatu street (later Mannerheimintie) in Kamppi in Helsinki, on September 5, 1935. Photo: Hugo Sundström / HBL / Press Photo Archive JOKA / Finnish Heritage Agency

On the 29th of April, the Finnish Heritage Agency opened a new outdoor photography exhibition in Helsinki City Center, which will be open until June 15^th 2025.

This exhibition in Helsinki will be followed by exhibitions in Porvoo and Tammisaari (old coastal towns in Southern Finland) with images from Porvoo (1960s and 1970s) and Tammisaari (1950s).

You can enjoy this Urban Life exhibition (partially) also online here: Kaupunkielämää / Stadsliv / Urban Life – Museovirasto.

Exhibitions are organized in collaboration with Konstsamfundet foundation, the Finnish Heritage Agency’s journalistic photo archive JOKA, the Lasipalatsi block, newspapers Hufvudstadsbladet, Västra Nyland, and Borgåbladet, as well as the cities of Raseborg and Porvoo.

October/November 2025, Cagliari (Italy)

Festival of Art, Theatre and new Technologies “The Wonders of possible” – INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS

Between October and November 2025, Kyber Theatre organises in Cagliari (Italy) the 12° Edition of the International Theatre, Art and New Technologies Festival, called “The Wonders of Possible”.

Kyber Theatre addresses Italian and International artists, emerging and not emerging companies and/or artists with an Open Call to submit their projects about “Interaction between theatre and new technologies”, with a deadline on the 20th of June 2025.

The winners of the Open Call will have guaranteed the full coverage of the costs for mobility and an “attendance fee” for the presentation of their performance for 2 evenings. If possible, any material required for the presentation of the performance / show / play will be covered.

Read and download the Open Call PDF (EN, IT) here<<<<

Learn more and submit your proposal at this link.