Digital meets Culture

18 April 2022

ICOMOS International Day for Monuments and Sites 2022

18 April was established as the International Day for Monuments and Sites by ICOMOS, it was the 1982, and later UNESCO adopted it during its 22nd General Conference.

Since then, each year ICOMOS proposes a theme for activities to be organized by its members, ICOMOS National and International Scientific Committees, Working Groups and partners, and anyone who wants to join in marking the Day.

The theme to explore for the 2022, building on last year’s “Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures” , is : Heritage and Climate through open, constructive and intergenerational dialogues.

This International Day is meant to offer the opportunity to showcase strategies to promote the full potential of heritage conservation research and practice, to deliver climate-resilient pathways to strengthen sustainable development.

The initiative is part of the ICOMOS Triennial Scientific Plan 2021-2024 and also supports the 2020 ICOMOS’ resolution on People-Centred Approaches to Cultural Heritage.

The organized events will have to cover the following topics:

Disaster Risk (Climate-Induced, Human-Induced)
Vernacular Heritage
Heritage in Conflict
Heritage & Democracy
Indigenous Heritage
Sacred-space or Sacred Heritage.

To learn more about the ICOMOS International Day for Monuments and Sites 2022 and how to participate: https://www.icomos.org/en/focus/18-april-international-day-for-monuments-and-sites/104836-18-april-2022-heritage-and-climate

The UNCHARTED community is enriched by a new member

New collaboration with Kulturtanken – Arts for Young Audiences Norway

UNCHARTED project has just established a collaboration with Kulturtanken – Arts for Young Audiences Norway, the Ministry of Culture agency responsible for ‘The Cultural Schoolbag‘, the crux of the government’s policy for bringing culture and art to children and young people.

Kulturtanken works closely with the Ministry of Education and Research and provides services to the central government authorities involved in the culture and education sectors, in order to strengthen children and young people’s participation in art and culture and to promote collaboration, research, and innovation.

Kulturtanken has joined the UNCHARTED community with the aim to collaborate in the mutual support of communication and dissemination activities as well as to exchange knowledge for supporting understanding, capturing and fostering the societal value of culture and the impact of cultural policies in Europe.

More detailed information on Kulturtanken are available on:
Showcase of Kulturtanken on UNCHARTED website
Kulturtanken website

INCULTUM was invited to take part in a discussion about synergies and future collaboration with sister projects funded by EU.

Coordination meeting among projects on sustainable cultural tourism

Initiated by IMPACTOUR project coordinator prof. João Martins from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the NOVA School of Science and Technology in Lisbon, a very productive and friendly meeting took place on 11th March between the representatives of a number of projects all involved with sustainable tourism.

The projects invited in the meeting hosted by IMPACTOUR were INCULTUM, SPOT, TEXTOUR, BE.CULTOUR, SMARTCULTOUR and RURITAGE. These projects are in different stages of progress (some close to the end, others in the middle, others at the beginning) and it is therefore important to establish collaboration and synergies on the common strands of work and the common challenges.

img. Human Vectors by Vecteezy

The scope of the call was to discuss about two main themes:

– the organization of a joint workshop to address the topic of post-project life of web portals. All the EU-funded projects normally produce a lot of documents and resources that are stored and kept after the end of the project term in the project’s website. This is already a way to maintan project’s outcomes which are not dispersed after the project is concluded, but the project’s activity is nevertheless “frozen” together with its documents. This is a very important issue to debate and find cleaver solutions o solve it, in the light of a real sustainability of the project’s outcomes. The workshop is expected to take place in July 2022, possibly in hybrid form.

– the realization of a policy roundtable under the aegis of the European Commission, to share views and seek for sinergies across the projects’ strands of policy development in the same area of sustainable cultural tourism. This event is expected to take place in Brussels in September 2022.

About the sister project:

IMPACTOUR https://www.impactour.eu/
SPOT http://www.spotprojecth2020.eu/
TEXTOUR https://textour-project.eu/about/
BE.CULTOUR https://becultour.eu/
SMARTCULTOUR http://www.smartcultour.eu/
RURITAGE https://www.ruritage.eu/

the congress, whose main theme is water, takes place at the University of Algarve, in May 2022

INCULTUM Pilot in Portugal co-organizes the 10th Congress on Rural Studies

How does water, waters – groundwater, rainwater, river, marine – condition or conditioned agriculture and rural society? What strategies and what processes of cooperation or conflict have occurred in the access and use of water? What economic uses have been given over time? How have water resources been or can be used from a sustainability, tourism and biodiversity perspective? And, in the context of climate change, how to manage this resource? How can we learn from the past valuable lessons for the future?

These are some of the starting questions for the organization of the IX Congress of Rural Studies and X RePort Rural Meeting, organized by SPER – Portuguese Society of Rural Studies, and by Rural RePort – Rural History Network.

The event is hosted and co-organized by the Faculty of Sciences and Technology and by the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of the University of Algarve, with participation of the Team of INCULTUM Pilot focused on research and recovery of the Campina de Faro area; in particular Pilot coordinator prof. Desidério Batista is member of the Organizing Committee and the Scientific Committee of the Congress.

The Congress will take place at the University of Algarve from the 26th to the 28th of May and prof. José Maria Civantos, coordinator of the INCULTUM Project, will be one of the Keynote speakers.

About the congress: https://sper.pt/cer2022/

Learn more about INCULTUM Pilot 2 Campina de Faro

SPOT: social and innovative platform on cultural tourism and its potential towards deepening Europeanisation

INCULTUM establishes collaboration with H2020 SPOT project

INCULTUM and SPOT projects are both focused on the research and study of problems related to cultural tourism, seeking for stakeholders’ and communities’ involvement and developing information to help policy and decision-making.

The EU-funded SPOT project aims to develop a new approach to understanding and addressing cultural tourism and to promote the development of disadvantaged areas. Specifically, it will identify different layers of data and capitalise on existing practice. It will explore emerging forms of cultural tourism, identifying opportunities and developing strategies to allow local people to gain benefit from their precious cultural assets. SPOT will engage academics and stakeholders in the development of policy proposals and generalise lessons learnt through an Innovation Tool to assist policymakers and practitioners.

Read more on SPOT website: http://www.spotprojecth2020.eu/

fieldwork continues to recover abandoned spaces of rural and landscape heritage in the INCULTUM Pilot set in Spain

Irrigation channel cleaning in Jérez del Marquesado and Cáñar at Altiplano de Granada

text and images courtesy of Elena Correa Jiménez (University of Granada).

Following the work for recovering the area that was initiated on Pilot site in January and February, on the 5th of March another fieldwork activity was done in the area of INCULTUM Pilot 1 Atiplano de Granada, cleaning four irrigation ditches in La Villa de Jérez del Marquesado. More than 80 people participated in this activity. The ditches of Rutan Alto, Rutanillo Alto de la Rambla Seca, Alcázar and Rutanillo del Álamo-Jérez del Marquesado have been cleaned.

[Show as slideshow]

Then on 12 March, the annual cleaning of the Barjas irrigation ditch (Cáñar, Granada) took pkace. About 100 volunteers from different disciplines and interests participated in the annual cleaning of the Barjas irrigation ditch, and the El Jueves branch was also cleaned. They were joined by members of the Irrigation Communities of Jérez del Marquesado (Granada) and Aldeanueva de la Vera (Cáceres). After the work, we enjoyed a traditional meal provided by the Cañar-Barjas Irrigation Community.

This work follows the activities done since the beginning of 2022 for the recovery of the Barranco del Alcázar in Jérez del Marquesado, after the reconstruction of the dry stone walls of the cultivation terraces, and the activity of planting rowan, walnut and chestnut trees, so to recover part of the productive and landscape space of this area.

The activity was organised by the Biocultural Archaeology Laboratory (MEMOLab), coordinated by Professor Dr. José María Martín Civantos, from the Department of Medieval History and CCTTHH of the University of Granada.

Learn more about INCULTUM Pilot 1 – Altiplano de Granada

the first visual outcomes of the project relate to the video recordings of INCULTUM Data Workshop

INCULTUM launches its YouTube channel

The Webpresence of INCULTUM project is now enriched with the opening of the INCULTUM YouTube channel.

The channel, coordinated by partner Promoter s.r.l. the responsible for INCULTUM communication and dissemination, opens with the recordings of the recent Data Workshop, INCULTUM’s first public event, realized in the framework of the research conducted based on data analysis. The Data Workshop was organized by University of Southern Denmark and included presentations and keynote speeches focused on measuring the impact of cultural tourism.

The YouTube channel will be enriched in the course of next months by collecting interesting videos from the 10 local Pilots.

Visit the INCULTUM YouTube channel and subscribe!

We care about your opinion!

UNCHARTED launches a survey to learn about visitors’ experience on its website

Two years after the UNCHARTED project started, the Consortium decided to launch a survey to measure the website’s popularity.

The survey is part of the dissemination planning process and aims to receive feedback to learn about the visitor experience on our website.

Who are the most frequent visitors? can they find what they are looking for? what would they like to find and what is missing, on the UNCHARTED website?

The answers collected will be useful to the project to improve its website and make it richer and more usable by all visitors who, with this questionnaire, have the opportunity to also leave qualitative feedback, through comments and suggestions, which can improve the experience on the site.

We care what you think and would like you to give us your opinion, so, what are you waiting for?

Click here to answer the questionnaire! It takes about 5 minutes.

A workshop will be held on March 17 to present the document. Comments will be collected until March 25, 2022

ARCH’s CEN Workshop Agreement for Resilience Management: open for Comments

ARCH project, together with several other organisations, has developed a draft CEN Workshop Agreement, CWA 17727 on a “Disaster Risk Management / Climate Change Adaptation Framework for historic areas”.

The draft , to which more than 40 stakeholders contributed, defines an integrated approach that combines disaster risk management and climate change adaptation activities for historic areas in communities.

The CEN Workshop Agreement is based on the ARCH Disaster Risk Management Framework for historic areas that takes climate change adaptation, heritage management, and social justice into account.

It includes step-by-step process to manage disasters, and to perform and monitor resilience-building activities and also guides readers in characterising historic areas, as well as their exposure to natural and climate change-induced hazards.

A wide variety of actors are asked to submit their comments: community/historic area decision makers, technical staff, all those who work on risk and vulnerability assessment, climate change adaptation and resilience enhancement as well as heritage managers, public administrators, sustainability and resilience officers, civil society associations, academic and research institutions.

The CEN Workshop Agreement is open for comments until 25 March and, in order to provide more information and deepen the arguments of the draft, a webinar will be held on March 17 to give a quick introduction to the document and gather feedback from interested stakeholders.

More information are available at here.

the collaboration with professors and students aims at actions to rehabilitate the old Quinta da Penha (Faro) and its hydraulic heritage

INCULTUM pilot in Portugal involves students of the University of Seville in fieldwork

text and images courtesy of University of Algarve.

The Portuguese pilot of INCULTUM over the Campina de Faro (Algarve), launched a challenge to professors and students of Architecture at the University of Seville.

As part of the Taller de Arquitectura Iberia Sur (TAIS), by Tierras del Algarve, Occidentes, coordinated by Professor Juan Vásquez Avellaneda, 40 students from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (ETSA) guided by six professors are developing projects to rehabilitate the old Quinta da Penha (Faro), from the 18th century, and its hydraulic heritage. TAIS proposes to work on the southern Portuguese region for the knowledge of shared experiences and situations: urban, housing, landscape, and heritage, with the aim of establishing cooperative and sustainable intervention strategies.

This aim is part of the intention of our pilot which, based on the study, inventory, and recovery of the traditional irrigation system (in disuse and degradation process), intends to give it visibility, making it protagonist in the proposal of cultural routes to be developed within the scope of the cultural tourism, and managed by the farmers and local communities.

[Show as slideshow]

In this sense, a study visit, and fieldwork was carried out, on November 18, 2021, with the objective of recognizing and analyzing the heritage values, but also the existing problems, with a view to developing proposals for the recovery of the buildings, adjacent outdoor spaces, and hydraulic structures (waterwheels, tanks, canals), whose program is part of the objectives of our pilot and INCULTUM.

In addition, on 13th May, a Congress entitled Del Algarve. Paisajes Ciudades Arquitecturas Palabras will be held at the University of Seville with the participation of the Portuguese pilot’s team that will present our study-case about the Campina de Faro, and where the rehabilitation projects of the historic Quinta da Penha and the landscape and water heritage, will be presented by Spanish students and professors.

Learn more about INCULTUM Pilot 2 Campina de Faro