Digital meets Culture

The brochure covers St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church, one of the most-visited historic graveyards in Ireland.

INCULTUM new historic graves brochure launched.

text courtesy: John Tierney

A new historic graves brochure has been launched for one of the most-visited historic graveyards in Ireland, St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church in Galway city. Jacinta Kiely of the Historic Graves Project and City Archaeologist, Jim Higgins produced the brochure. The brochure compliments a survey of the church’s mortuary monument which was recently published at this link and for which data entry is still taking place.
Genealogical tourism is a big element in Irish tourism development and this project lead by Jim Higgins aims to combine the history, archaeology and genealogy of a number of churches in Galway city as a unified heritage tourism resource. The brochure (attached here in PDF, 1,95 MB) is one of a series which the same team have worked on over the last few years.

The INCULTUM Pilot set in Albania aims at recording, promoting and disseminating lost symbolic aspects of the Vlach culture

Vlachs ‘Open days’ program of activities taking place in the area of the Upper Vjosa valley

Article and images courtesy of Eglantina Serjani (CeRPHAAL)

The Upper Vjosa valley, in southeast Albania, for many centuries has been a ‘transhumance route’ used by the Vlach communities. Vlach are a historic people who speak a language that derives from Latin and by their ways of living, based primarily on nomadic pastoralism. Twice a year, groups of Vlach families along with their flocks migrated from winter pastures in the Ionian coast towards summer pastures in the mountainous areas of south-east Albania. Quite often, Vlach families built their summer encampments in the mountain areas extended to the southwest and northeast of the valley. This way of living persisted up to the 50s of the last century, when the economic policies established by the Albanian communist regime banned Vlach transhumance. Many Vlach families were then settled in the villages of the valley, ultimately losing their nomadic lifestyle but not their language.

Vlachs have historically suffered a cultural discrimination, which eventually hampered the preservation of many of the symbolic aspects of their culture, including their traditions, customs, rituals and material culture. Therefore, one of the main goals of CeRPHAAL, the Albanian partner institution in the INCULTUM project that coordinates Pilot 8 Vjosa the shared river, is to undertake activities aiming at recording, promoting and disseminating these lost symbolic aspects of the Vlach culture.

Part of these activities included designing Vlach transhumance trails as well as reconstructing their typical historic dwelling – the kalive. The dwelling was reconstructed last year in a camping site on the outskirts of the town of Përmet, a location that correlates with one of the Vlachs’ temporary daily camps set during their seasonal transhumance movements towards summer and winter pastures. The dwelling was a structure built of ephemeral material, and as such, according to those people who once lived in nomadic life required to be either repaired or reconstructed every time the Vlachs migrated to their encampment. To follow in these footsteps, in early July 2023, CeRPHAAL team undertook amendment works in the roof and the interiors walls and floors of the dwelling. This process, likewise the construction, was a learning experience, involving once again the elderly Vlachs, researchers, young specialists, students and volunteers.

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Succeeding the repair works of the kalive, during the 7-8th of July 2023, a number of dynamic cross-cultural activities took place at the dwelling site. One of the main domestic activities of the Vlach society in the past was wool processing, which was mainly a woman’s domain. Some of the objects displayed today in the hut are implements used for making homespun clothes, such as the wool brush, distaff, hand spinning wheel, etc. By getting use of these instruments, the elderly Vlach women of the Vjosa valley demonstrated how the wool is processed and turned into yarn, while also allowing students and visitors to interact and learn by experimenting.

During the Vlach ‘open days’, a photo documentary titled ‘The Vlachs: a short history as seen through the lens of photography’ was displayed in a wide-screen projection at the site. Also, a film documentary, featuring precious and rare moments of the Vlachs’ lives in Albania from 1940 until 1970 was shown to the visitors.

The activities concluded with a large celebration that involved a wider participation of Vlachs, local stakeholders, representatives of cultural institutions, and visitors at the site.

Madrid and online, 20-22 September 2023

EOSC Symposium 2023, the European Open Science Cloud annual event

From 20-22 September 2023, the EOSC Symposium will take place in Madrid, in the context of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The EOSC Symposium is organised by the EOSC Future project, together with the EOSC Tripartite collaboration (the EOSC Association, the EOSC Steering Board and the European Commission).

This year’s event will be fully hybrid, facilitating broader exchanges between stakeholders from ministries, policy makers, research organisations, service providers, research infrastructures and research communities driving the development of – and engagement with – the European Open Science Cloud. In the context of the EOSC Future project, the EOSC Symposium will also be a critical platform to showcase project achievements and key exploitable results.

Under the heading ‘Taking EOSC into the future’, the Symposium will take on pressing topics and more around EOSC’s sustainability:

EOSC after 2027
Governance and guidelines
Impact on the European Data and Infrastructure
ecosystem
…and more!

Event’s website: https://symposium23.eoscfuture.eu/

The transborder route of INCULTUM between Greece and Albania is ready to be visited

The Vlach transumance is on Wikiloc

images by The High Mountains

Within the framework of the #INCULTUM project and the pilot “Aoos/Vjosa the shared river”, which aims to develop cross border innovative cultural tourism, the pastoral routes in both sides of the border (Greek and Albanian) were mapped on Wikiloc.

These routes, created by Vlachs through the centuries, connect the Aoos/Vjosa Valley with Grammos mountain grazelands, and their promotion can help to promote transborder hiking, trekking and cultural tourism.

The basic characteristic of Vlachs is the semi-nomadic life that dictates a special way of life and identifies the characteristics of their society and economy. It is about a way of life indicated by the ecological conditions that sealed the collective life of these people. Until the beginning of the 20th century only the Vlachs of Aetomilitsa had about 40,000 sheep and goats, from which they produced milk and wool products. There are six Vlach villages in Konitsa and until today there are people speaking the Vlach language, which is a language that derives from Latin.

There are Vlachs all over the Balkans and of course on both sides of the border in Greece and Albania, but for them there was no border, they used the same routes to graze their sheep long before the borders even existed.

Visit the Wikiloc page of the Vlachs Transhumance path Grammos by The High Mountains @INCULTUM to find more information on the route.

Discover all the INCULTUM Pilots: https://incultum.eu/pilots/

The old legend about little lizards (Salamandra salamandra) that gave Banská Štiavnica its wealth and fame and that completely changed the life of the region

Discovering INCULTUM Pilot in Slovakia: legend of the Banská Štiavnica lizards

text by prof. PhDr. Alexandra Bitušíková (Head of University Center for International Projects at Matej Bel University), images by Pietro Masi (Promoter s.r.l).

Coordinated by Matej Bel University, the INCULTUM Pilot 3 Mining Treasures of Central Slovakia aims at supporting territorial and tourist promotion in this region which has significant cultural and technical heritage related to its mining history. One result of this Pilot is the participatory process with students and local operators for the realization of the website http://www.banickepoklady.eu/ including an interactive map of the mining heritage and many informative resources about museums, activities, hicking routes and events for tourists in the area.

The legend of the Banská Štiavnica lizards

The city of Banská Štiavnica has been connected with mining and rich deposits of precious metals since ancient times. No one really remembered when exactly it all started, but there is an old legend about little lizards (Salamandra salamandra) that gave Banská Štiavnica its wealth and fame. “Supposedly it was the shepherd who first saw them up on the hillside, shining more brightly than the sun in the sky”, this is how mothers were telling their children a good night legend of Banská Štiavnica lizards.

The event that completely changed the life of the region of Banská Štiavnica is said to have happened a long time ago (approx. in the 13th century) when this region was mostly covered by dense forests, small meadows and a few settlements. As the legend says, the shepherd Ján lived right in the middle of this. One day he drove the herd out to pasture again. On the way, he pulled out a whistle from his pocket and started playing with his nimble fingers. And when he was already high on the hillside and far from his native settlement, he stopped to look at the enchanting landscape. He enjoyed how pleasant the sunny day was and his game attracted even the small inhabitants of the forest. He sat on a rock and looked at the animals.

Then suddenly, there were lizards basking in the sun on a big rock in a distance. He had never seen such a wonderful thing before. Two of them shone with a kind of strange light as if they were forged from silver or gold. Ján was surprised and wanted to take a closer look at them, but they hid under a rock. The boulder was big, but the shepherd’s curiosity didn’t let him rest. He rolled it away with great difficulty. What he saw under the rock changed the history of the region. A lump of gold as huge as a hat was hiding under a boulder. The shepherd pinched his cheek, kicked his ankle to see if he was dreaming.

The rumor about its discovery spread with the speed of the wind, and so people began to converge from all sides. They dug into the ground, dug shafts, and later whole mines and settlements were created next to them. They built beautiful houses, churches, schools and gave birth to a city nestled in a valley, a city that bears a proud name Banská Štiavnica.

Based on:

Marec, Anton. 2000. Hnali sa veky nad hradbami. Martin: Vydavateľstvo Matice slovenskej. https://www.banskastiavnica.sk/mesto/zvyky-a-zaujimavosti/#

Discover all the INCULTUM Pilots: https://incultum.eu/pilots/

For the first time after the COVID-19 pandemic, ArTour project brought together a group of Chinese students from the Forward Arts School.

Pisa meets Beijing and Shangai through ArTour

img. courtesy: sestaporta.news

Within a varied programme of activities, a group of Chinese students of arts had the opportunity to do laboratories and “artist jam sessions” in Pisa and its territory, and to showcase their works in a dedicated exhibition, opening on the 29th July 2023 in Pisa.

The young Chinese artist Wang Yitong, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, has accompanied the students in their interpretation of the landscapes and architecture of the coastline, aswell as following many other activities that included mutual confrontation, meetings with other artists, art workshops, and more.

The outcome of this exchange on the Tuscan territory was possible thanks to the active cooperation and dedication of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing and the Italian Embassy in China, which contributed to the making of the peculiarities of the Pisan territory accessible and usable to the Chinese community. The association Est Ovest Est based in Pisa promoted the initiative as a way to establish and reinforce artistic and cultural bridges with China.

Read the full article (Italian language) in this blog.

The trail is QR code based and got launched on the 23rd July 2023 with a nice talk and prresentation of Pilot coordinator Eacthra

INCULTUM graveyard trails design launched in Waterford graveyard

img courtesy: John Tierney

A QR code based trail was launched on the 23rd July to celebrate the Pattern Day for St Declan in Ardmore, West Waterford, Ireland. A design process run through the INCULTUM Pilot resulted in an A7 sized brochure with 8 points of interest being presented and tested, by the local community in Ardmore village.

A well attended talk on the history and archaeology of the monastic enclosure in Ardmore by John Tierney and Martha Hannon of Eachtra, served to launch the new Past in Your Pocket brochure, which is being trialled as a model for grassroots tourism guides.

This activity is linked to INCULTUM’s Ireland pilot, that plans to augment the touristic potential by improving communications among communities and also among those communities and the diaspora population to whom they supply heritage data and stories.

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organized by the INCULTUM Pilot set in Greece, the discussion was linked to the impact of climate change and the need of finding sustainable solutions in local territories

What kind of technological growth are we aiming for? Event in Ioannina (Greece)

text and photos courtesy of The High Mountains cooperative.

On Friday, 23/06/2023, at the “Dim. Hatzis” Cultural Centre (Old Slaughterhouses) in Ioannina, the event entitled “What kind of technological growth are we aiming for?” took place. This event is a continuation of the action “A cooperation for the Dragonlake of Tymfi” and the training workshops on 3D printing.

Sotiris Tsoukarelis, President of the Social Cooperative Enterprise “The High Mountains”, wishing to introduce the audience to a productive discussion, referred to the issues of the climate crisis that year after year makes its impact more noticeable, to the ecosystems that are collapsing and to the necessity of our immediate reaction. He stressed the importance of using open-source technologies as innovative tools for the preservation of cultural heritage and the promotion of cultural tourism. Some of the questions that emerged from this statement and monopolized the discussion were: How can technology become a catalyst for the transition to equitable and inclusive development? What is the role of cosmolocalism in a global environmental disaster?

Minas Liarokapis, founder of the New Dexterity Lab, and professor at the University of Auckland was there to provide answers as he shared practical examples of open, sustainable and inclusive technologies, opening up the discussion about the problems, challenges and opportunities of a new way of production by engaging different models of technological development where robots, automation and artificial intelligence meet traditional techniques such as the loom, water mill and manual digger to determine which ones ultimately serve people and the planet.

Afterwards, a demonstration of the WaterJet that collects environmental data took place at the Lake of Ioannina. The WaterJet is an open technology tool designed in New Zealand by the team of Minas Liarokapis and was printed in the public library of Konitsa in the framework of the Incultum project, in which The High Mountains SCE participates, in collaboration with P2P Lab Ioannina and the Tzoumakers Lab. The WaterJet will remain in the area as a tool for monitoring its sensitive aquatic ecosystems.

The discussion was followed by a relaxed discussion at the Thimomeno Portreto bar.

In collaboration with Stegi – Onassis Foundation, in the context of the exhibition Plásmata II: Ioannina.

More about the Aoos Pilot:

The Vjosa/Aoos River, considered as ‘one of Europe’s last living wild rivers’, springs from Mt. Pindus in Greece, and then enters Albania. On both sides of the river banks, extends a terrain of agrarian field terraces alternated with hilly lands of rich Mediterranean vegetation where the traditional settlements are situated, followed by high mountain massifs dominated by continental climate with rich water sources, forests, flora and fauna, and broad prominent pastures.

On the Greek side, Konitsa is the main town of the area and the capital of the municipality surrounded by some of the highest mountains of Greece. It is built on the edge of Vikos Canyon, core of the National Park of Vikos-Aoos and one of the four Greek Geoparks, which became a member of the European and Global Geopark Networks in 2010. Numerous geosites within the territory are situated in landscapes of incomparable beauty.

In the INCULTUM pilot 7, the main expected action relates to the mapping of the natural, social, cultural and productive resources of the area, analysis of the data gathered during the mapping and their visualization using Business Intelligence tools. With this digital platform we are going to give the ability to citizens, local authorities and stakeholders, but also to visitors, to virtually combine resources of the area and propose their own evidence-based development actions and policies. Furthermore, the database is going to be participatory and always open to new inputs, collected by questionnaires, free text, business registrations, comments for the area etc.

Discover all the INCULTUM Pilots: https://incultum.eu/pilots/

Leuven, 29 November - 1 December 2023

“De-centering the history of international organisations”

International and transnational organisations have been prominent actors in histories of the long 20th century, but there has been little reflection on how historians can apply those same methodological perspectives to the use of these organisation’s archives.

In order to discuss the “de-centering” of the history of international and transnational organisations, this workshop focuses on methodological and epistemological reflections, and aims to bring together scholars working on all different strands of internationalism – from intergovernmental to non-governmental and civil society organisations, from religious internationals to trade union confederations and financial institutions while answering key questions. Contributions that are based on a critical evaluation of experiences in the field (particularly in archives) will be welcomed, in order highlight how researchers have considered the methodological implications of de-centring their examination of these international organisations.

The workshop, “De-centering the history of international organisations”, will take place from November 29 to December 1, 2023. Participants will be asked to submit a max. 4 page paper by 14 November, 2023, complementing the 12-15 min oral presentations given during the workshop.

More information will follow, it’s possible to get updated at this link.

The deadline for application is 28th July 2023

TWA cultural heritage Digitisation Grant 2023 for UK-based digitisation projects

Stemming from a conversation around the impact of funding on the heritage sector, the TWA Digitisation Grant has adapted and evolved over the years, responding directly to the real and current needs of the heritage organisations it seeks to support.

This year, the fund offers three grants of up to £3000 for the winners, and Up to £1,000 in match funding for all other eligible applicants. The fundings can be spent on any UK-based digitisation project, provided in the form of TownsWeb Archiving’s digitisation and software services of equivalent value.

To apply for funding, it’s necessary to provide a few information in order to receive the grant application via email. You can apply here. All applications must be submitted by 11:59pm on 28th July 2023. Winners will be announced live at the ARA Annual Conference and via livestream on 30th August 2023.

Learn more at this link and by watching a video presentation on the Overview: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/m66JDTYT7F26RnhBMX2XZW.