Europeana 2021 will explore how the cultural heritage sector can recover, rebuild and grow in a post-pandemic world. Each day will begin with an address from a leading keynote speaker to inspire and inform your experience. 70% of the programme for Europeana 2021 – over 30 sessions – was co-created with cultural heritage professionals across the sector who responded to our call for proposals. In the afternoon, you can explore the rich results and join a variety of interactive and engaging presentations, workshops and activities.
Discover and register: https://pro.europeana.eu/post/announcing-our-programme-for-europeana-2021
On Wednesday 10 November, the conference will explore putting values at the heart of Europe’s digital future. We are delighted to be joined by Yvo Volman, acting Director of the Data directorate in the Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission, and George Oates, CEO & Founder Museum in a Box, for keynote speeches, followed by a panel session and Q&A. Attendees will get a deeper understanding of the Commission’s vision for a digital Europe and its ambitions for Europeana at the heart of the data space for cultural heritage. You will be able to listen to and engage in debate around what constitutes a healthy digital public space, explore how a ‘single market for data’ relates to an open and trusted digital public space, and the unique contribution that the heritage sector can make to a values-led digital agenda.
On Thursday 11 November, the focus will turn to ensuring sustainable digital transformation. As challenges from climate change through to the COVID-19 pandemic drive us to look again at the lasting impact of our action, the conference will explore how policy agendas and initiatives such as the Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus provide us with opportunities to collaborate across sectors. This can help us to share knowledge, create new experiences and use our digital transformation to contribute to a sustainable future for Europe. The day’s keynote address will be given by Secretary General of Europa Nostra, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, who will be joined afterwards by thought-leaders in the sector for a panel and Q&A discussion.
Finally, on Friday 12 November, the conference will expand on using technology to drive social change. Together, we will explore how technology can help our sector understand and improve its offer to the people we serve, provide access to previously inaccessible information, democratise knowledge, connect with audiences and give voice to marginalised groups. Pier Luigi Sacco, Professor of Cultural Economics, IULM University Milan, will give the final keynote address of the conference and then explore the topic further in a panel session and Q&A following his speech.
In preparing the content materials for the aggregation to Europeana, partner TopFoto referenced its inaugural writer-in-residence, Rommi Smith and her residency-collaboration with musician and composer, Christella Litras. This residency, TopFoto’s expertise and its collaboration with artist-researcher, Rommi Smith, has led to the planning of a WEAVE LabDay that is geared towards artists, researchers, archivists, CHIs and other key stakeholders that engage with photographic content. This LabDay also features contributions including from John Balean, Operations Manager at TopFoto.
This call for application is promoted in the framework of the Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals and is part of the several responses undertaken by UNESCO in order to contrast the crisis that affected the artistic and cultural sector after the Covid 19 outbreak. The initiative has the goal to provide a mechanism of technical and financial assistance to Member States interested in designing, revising or implementing inclusive policy reforms for the protection and promotion of the economic, social and cultural rights of the artists and cultural professionals. In particular, the reforms should face the issues of social security, decent jobs and income generation, copyrights protection, credit conditions, tax exemptions, mobility, freedom of artistic expression, trade unions and professional organizations, unemployment benefits, sick leaves or health insurance from which professionals in other sectors already benefit.
The Europeana Aggregators Forum is the network of national, thematic and domain aggregators: organizations which enable cultural heritage institutions to share their content with Europeana and open it up to new audiences. Twice a year all of them meet to exchange experience, present projects and align coordination, in sight of maintaining an effective aggregation ecosystem to support the development of Europeana.
On 21st-24th September the city of Venice hosted the 2021 edition of the European Cultural Heritage Summit. The Venice Summit offered a platform to celebrate excellence in cultural heritage skills and to discuss Europe’s recovery and its future. It was organised by Europa Nostra – the European Voice of Civil Society Committed to Cultural Heritage – during the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, with the support of the European Union and the patronage of the European Parliament, through the Creative Europe and Horizon 2020 programmes, as well as in collaboration with other European and Italian partners. The event was run in a hybrid format, with a limited number of stakeholders on-site and a wider audience connected virtually. The main outcome is represented by the Venice Call to Action: “For a New European Renaissance”, a document that puts forward 12 concrete and actionable proposals with the aim of including the potential of cultural heritage in the key priorities of the European Union and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
INCULTUM is a three years H2020 project dealing with the challenges and opportunities of cultural tourism with the aim of furthering sustainable social, cultural and economic development. It moves from the assumption that travelling is a way to learn and improve oneself, to enrich one’s vision and improve mutual understanding.
