Digital meets Culture

hosted in the in the exhibition hall of the CAFA Art Museum, the event saw participation of various guests and of Situ Zhaoguang's family

Sculpture of Life, conference and memorial service to Situ Zhaoguang

ph. Situ Zhixia

text by Elisa Debernardi, photos courtesy of Situ Zhixia.

On November 24, the “Sculpture of Life”- Mr. Situ Zhaoguang’s memorial service was held in the exhibition hall of the CAFA Art Museum, where until Dicember 12, 2021, will be host the “Light of Inner Beauty” Situ Zhaoguang’s retrospective exhibition.

ph. Situ Zhixia

ph. Situ Zhixia

The memorial service was presided by Zhang Wei, director of the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

ph. Situ Zhixia

ph. Situ Zhixia

Fan Di’an, President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, said that the leadership of the Department of Sculpture attaches great importance to this exhibition, and the curatorial team led by Mr. Duan Haikang has put a lot of effort into formulating a planning plan.

Dean Fan Di’an recalled the deep impression that Mr. Situ left him. “Mr. Situ’s art” said Fan Di’an “deserves more research. Several generations of teachers and students of the Sculpture Department gathered together, not only remembering Mr. Situ’s outstanding contribution to the development of the new Chinese sculpture industry, but also an opportunity to talk about the inheritance and innovation of the sculpture education and teaching of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.”

ph. Situ Zhixia

ph. Situ Zhixia

Duan Haikang, professor of the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the executive curator of this exhibition, introduced the curatorial approach, and explained that: “In the exhibition hall, you can see a lot of pictures of Mr. Situ at various stages and photos of life details. The exhibition team also magnified some important small works of Mr. Situ using 3D scanning and three-dimensional engraving.”

He concluded the speech with an hope: “I also hope that everyone can feel Mr. Situ’s Wisdom thoughts, broad personality, outstanding sentiment, quiet aesthetics, and the brilliance and inner vitality of humanity exuded by his works“.

ph. Situ Zhixia

ph. Situ Zhixia

Among the various guests who spoke, also Ms. Zhao Ruiying, an old professor of the Department of Sculpture of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, delivered a speech. Ms. Zhao Ruiying recalled the three years spent together in Tibet and Mr. Situ’s creative work there: “Situ was very fascinated by creation. All day long, there are only two things: creation and sleep“.

ph. Situ Zhixia

Mr. Situ Zhaoguang’s widow, Ms. Jin Tingting, and his son, Mr. Situ Xiaochun, expressed their sincere gratitude to the school and the sculpture department for carefully organizing and planning this exhibition on behalf of their relatives.

ph. Situ Zhixia

At the end of the memorial service, Ms. Jin Tingting shared a lot of details about Mr. Situ’s life and artistic creation that were not well known when he was alive.

2-3 December 2021, in Brussels and online

ILUCIDARE Playground: heritage voices out!

Next 2-3 December a new international event of ILUCIDARE H2020 project will take place in Brussels and online.

The Playground ILUCIDARE will gather the multiplicity of cultural stakeholders (individual citizens, communities, entrepreneurs, researchers ..) to debate, share practices and reflections.

The programme will focus on the relationship between heritage and innovation, highlighting the importance of citizen engagement and participatory governance of heritage for innovation in the territories.
It will include speeches, panel discussions, practical workshops, networking and short sessions.

During the event the ILUCIDARE Innovation Handbook will be released which aims to bridge the gap between idea and practice and support heritage-led innovation projects.

The ILUCIDARE Playground will also launch the ILUCIDARE challenge to support new ideas on the themes of heritage, innovation and international relations.

Further information:
The event
The programme
To register for the event

December 8 2021, online

Cultural Heritage in Action event: sharing solutions in European cities and regions

On 8 December, Cultural Heritage in Action will hold an online event to present the work of the project so far and introduce future activities.

Cultural Heritage in Action is one of the actions of the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage of the European Commission.
Funded under the Creative Europe programme of the EU, it assumes that cultural heritage is a key resource for the future of Europe and the sustainable development of cities and regions. Its aim is to strengthen cultural policies and initiatives and develop innovative solutions to preserve heritage.
The project has focused so far on three topics:

participatory governance of cultural heritage;
adaptive reuse of built heritage;
quality of interventions on cultural heritage.

The objectives of the online event are to share the results of the first phase of the project, in particular to preset what has been learned from the representatives of European cities and regions about the power of cultural heritage for local and regional development and raise awareness on future peer-learning opportunities.
A reflection will also be made on the post-pandemic situation and its impacts on cultural heritage.

Details on the programme and to register are available at the links:
Cultural Heritage in Action online event – Dec 08
Cultural Heritage in Action: online event. | Cultural Heritage In Action

More information on Cultural Heritage in Action:
Funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, it is the EU peer-learning programme for local and regional policy-makers and practitioners to exchange knowledge and experience on cultural heritage. It is managed by a Consortium led by EUROCITIES with Europa Nostra, KEA, ERRIN and Architects’ Council of Europe.

The WEAVE project was presented at the event on 27/11/2021, under the best practice examples that are underpinned by research

WEAVE at the first Roma Women’s Gathering hosted at the UK

img. courtesy Rosa Cisneros

text and image by Rosa Cisneros.

In 2018 the Drom Kotar Mestipen (DKM) organised a Roma Women’s Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Rosa Cisneros (C-DaRE) at the time was the Catalan Government’s Roma women’s consultant and leading on the political entities strand of linking policy and grassroots Roma women. Through that partnership the DKM, the Catalan Government and Cisneros were responsible for bringing together 375 Roma women. From 17 different countries together to talk about education, culture, feminism and identity. They had local grassroots women attend the event and a dream of theirs was to organise a local events throughout Europe and the UK.

Fast forward to 2021 and the EU-funded RTransform project led by DKM where COVUNI is a partner and Cisneros is responsible for the UK strand of the work, is exactly about transferring the Congress method and LabDay idea to 5 different countries. The UK is part of this network and the Sheffield-based organisation Care for Young People’s Future is a key player.

Saturday Nov 27^th, 2021 at Sheffield Hallam University we held the first UK Roma Women’s Gathering. The event welcomed many role models from the community and also local grassroots Roma women and girls to talk about the importance of education, arts and culture, and dance. The Gathering had a local group of young dancers performing and discussing cultural heritage.

The WEAVE project was presented at the event under the best practice examples that are underpinned by research. Cisneros and Yassmin Stanislava discussed WEAVE and a Roma Recycle children’s book project to highlight the importance of cultural heritage in discussing and navigating identity politics.

November 29 and December 1, 2021 - online info sessions on funding opportunities

New European Bauhaus: actions and funding

The New European Bauhaus initiative is a creative and interdisciplinary movement promotes innovative solutions to complex societal problems through creativity and co-creation.
It brings a cultural and creative dimension to the European Green Deal and considers green transition and digital challenges as an opportunity to improve lives of citizens and ” creating beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive places, products and ways of living”.

The last September 15, the European Commission adopted an official Communication setting out the concept of the New European Bauhaus, that includes policy actions and funding possibilities.
The project follows six months of conversation with thousands of individuals and organisations (across Europe and beyond) to rethink the way we live together and it aims at accelerating the transformation of various economic sectors to provide access to all citizens to goods that are circular and less carbon intensive.

The Communication presents the different EU funding opportunities supporting the initiative. Several calls (fully dedicated or contributing to the New European Bauhaus) are presented according to the three main types of impacts:

transformation of places on the ground
transformation of the environment that enables innovation
transformation of our perspectives and way of thinking

To give the opportunity to potential candidates to learn more about the possibilities of EU funding available and give practical information on calls, two online information sessions were scheduled on November 29 and December 1.

reflecting on the project's ambitions with capacity building towards different communities

Capacity building workshop for WEAVE project

Organized by partner Europeana and coordinated by Sebastiaan ter Burg, a workshop based on the Europeana Capacity Building playbook took place for the WEAVE project on 25th November. The methodology is designed to support organizations and projects in creating a roadmap for capacity building for digital transformation, and it is influenced by the iterative approach of the Europeana Impact Playbook, thus positioning the expected impact as the driver for reflections, strategy development and activities.

The event was attended with lively participation by project partners, including those involved in the LabDays and in content selection and aggregation. The discussion was conducted by using the Jamboard tool that allows participants to put down virtual sticky notes on a discussion table.

Although the capacity building effort of WEAVE is already well defined since the proposal stage, the results of the workshop were very useful to determine the priority, gaps and feasibility in the different capacity building related activities planned for various stakeholders, also assessing the project’s ambitions with capacity building towards different communities.

online, 27th November 2021

WEAVE Labday about Portuguese intangible heritage

image courtesy of PédeXumbo

This LabDay from the WEAVE series is dedicated to engage communities in South Portugal to re-discover intangible heritage practices linked to traditional dance. The workshop, organized by partner PédeXumbo, takes place in the framework of the annual Festival Desdobra-te, a festival of dance and other arts, organized by PédeXumbo, in Évora (Portugal).

The event is in Portuguese language.

More info: https://weave-culture.eu/2021/10/20/portuguese-dance/

the event taking place in Brussels and online on 2-3 December will bring together a network of stakeholders in digital cultural heritage

WEAVE goes to ILUCIDARE Playground

ILUCIDARE is a European funded project which promotes heritage as a resource of innovation and international cooperation. Its ambitions are to establish an international network promoting heritage and contributing to the overall objectives of the EU strategy for international cultural relations and of the EU international cooperation in research and innovation.

ILUCIDARE will maintain the legacy of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage also by a series of engagign events, the next of which is taking place in Brussels and online on 2-3 December. The event will be accessible from anywhere in the world through a dedicated digital platform, presenting a full programme of inspirational speeches, panel discussions, practical workshops, networking and short enticing sessions to share reflections and the latest experience of the ILUCIDARE partners in heritage-led innovation and international relations.

The WEAVE coordinator Alex Stan from IN2 will join this international event presenting our project, so to stimulate interaction and create collaborations.

More info: https://ilucidare.eu/

Initiative to celebrate European cultural heritage, fourth edition

Call for applications is now open for the European Heritage Days Stories

The European Heritage Days (EHD) is a joint action of the Council of Europe and the European Union, representing the most celebrated participatory cultural event shared by millions of European citizens.

During the EHD events, which are held in September each year in the 50 countries of the European Cultural Convention, European citizens have the opportunity to learn about their heritage, the richness and cultural diversity of Europe by enjoying free visits to monuments and sites, and become aware of the need to protect cultural heritage against risk.

Starting from the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, every year, the Council of Europe, the European Union and the EHD National Coordinators launch the Call for European Heritage Days Stories, to highlight the stories behind EHD events, recognize the role of people in heritage conservation and allow them to share their story.

The goals of the Call are:

Encourage people to engage with Europe’s cultural heritage and strengthen a sense of belonging to the common European space.
Collect stories that clarify how communities understand the European dimension of local heritage.
Promote communities that work with heritage in agreement with European values and with a long-term collaborative perspective.
Encourage communities to improve their Stories and reward their efforts.
Motivate and encourage participation in the European Heritage Days.

The call has just been opened, the stories can be submitted through the online application form at https://www.europeanheritagedays.com/Story/Add

The Stories that have passed the eligibility criteria will be promoted and published as European Heritage Days Stories.

If the Story has the potential to be developed into a specific one-off project, organisations will be invited to apply for a grant through a second round of applications.

To know the terms and conditions for sending Stories and Grant, read more at EHD Stories long english.pdf

online wokshop series organized by Europeana, 29 November - 13 December - 10 January

Open consultation sessions on Digital Transformation

Do you want to help shape the thinking on how the cultural sector embraces Digital Transformation? Do you have your own views about the challenges and opportunities digital brings? Can you help us shape our plan of action?

We would like to invite you to participate in one of the three open online consultation workshops held by the Europeana Digital Transformation Task Force. This is the first cross initiative taskforce for Europeana and couldn’t come at a more important time as we all face the challenges of surviving and thriving in the pandemic.

Understanding digital transformation and knowing how to build the digital capacity of individuals, organisations and networks is not simple. People’s understanding of the issues is defined in part by their own digital literacy, confidence and maturity, which for many working in the sector is still low. Added to this, the sector faces other multifaceted and complex challenges.

Each of the three consultation workshops will last for 2.5 hours and will be facilitated by Jane Finnis and Anra Kennedy from Culture24. The workshops have been shaped by the newly formed task force as a way to gather wider input from the sector, and to inform the creation of a digital transformation action plan (the main output of the DT Taskforce).

Dates are:

Workshop 1. Monday 29th November 2021 – 3.30pm and 6pm CET.
Workshop 2. Monday 13th December 2021 -3.30pm and 6pm CET.
Workshop 3. Monday 10th January 2021 – 3.30pm and 6pm CET.

The consultation workshops are open to anyone who wants to participate. You can sign up to take part in one or more workshops by filling out the form below. All workshops will take place in Zoom and details will be shared with participants a week in advance. The workshop will be run in English but there is flexibility for some break out sessions to be in other languages depending on the makeup of the group and availability of a bilingual facilitator.

The Initiative wide digital transformation task force consists of 8 members:

Rob Davies and Vera Kriezi (Europeana Network Association)
Kerstin Arnold and Chiara Latronico (Europeana Aggregators Forum)
Marta Peinador and Susanna Anas (Independent members)
Ariadna Matas and Sebastiaan ter Burg (Europeana Foundation)

The task force have taken on the task of producing an action plan for adoption across Europeana Initiative stakeholders that includes:

Recommendations for activities to support and guide the sector
Recommendations for the future of the DT Taskforce and the possibility of a longer term working group to continue to support this work
Recommendations on the assessment and measurement of digital transformation
A review of the current definition of digital transformation

They recognise the need for a united approach and a clear plan of action to help us understand how to harness the potential that digital transformation offers.

https://pro.europeana.eu/project/digital-transformation-task-force