Intangible Cultural Heritage in Context: the dynamics of living heritage, place, and its safeguarding

With the understanding that ICH is embodied and vitalized by people, its keepers and communities, they therefore play the most crucial roles in shaping and changing the relationships that their living cultural traditions, practices, and expressions have to place – in conceptual and concrete, historical and contemporary, local and transnational, organic and more deliberate (and activist) ways. Through this lens, I explore the shifting dynamics of these relationships, as contextualized with the broader economic, political, sociocultural, and ecological forces – and threats to people’s wellbeing, livelihoods, and their ICH – that are at play. Indeed, with the mounting and interrelated challenges of today, culture keepers may decide to team up with heritage professionals to: bolster the sustainability of their ICH; keep strong its ties to place, however fluid; and raise wider awareness of issues faced. In this light, I also consider ICH through the lens of safeguarding interventions, examining the relationships of ICH to places and spaces in the heritage enterprise, and drawing on approaches of longstanding ecomuseological and U.S. public folklore frameworks. As based on examples from the U.S., I focus attention onto ICH in the archival context, as a place for its collaborative preservation, reclamation, dissemination, and transmission. I conclude with considerations for museological efforts that provide a space for uplifting people’s ICH, one that can be used to explicitly address present problems – deep-seated and lingering, and in need of rooting out.

LU.GAR (PLA.CES): Mapping Oral Tradition in Cultural Territories

Places are imbued with meaning and significance through the stories, songs, legends, and other oral expressions shared by their inhabitants. These narratives create a layer of imagination that overlays the geographic and physical world, shaping our understanding of our surroundings and connecting us to our communities. In this talk we present the LU.GAR project that sought to map oral traditions within cultural territories. By listening to and studying old storytellers, the project aimed to transmit traditional stories to new generations and motivate new storytellers to embrace the oral traditions of a Place, creating new experiences through them. The project also has a digital version, which adds virtual places from these cultural territories (an essential dimension in the ICH transmission of practices and celebrations today).

The LU.GAR project recognizes that traditional oral expressions are facing challenges in the modern world. In the past, oral tradition was a vibrant part of everyday life. People would gather in the evenings to share stories, passing them down from generation to generation. This was a way of preserving cultural knowledge, values, and beliefs, and also as a form of entertainment and social bonding. In the modern world, traditional ways of sharing oral tradition have declined. People no longer gather around the fire to tell stories. However, these stories are not dying out, but rather transforming and adapting to new times. In recent years, there has been a growing movement to revive oral tradition. This movement is being led by a new generation of storytellers who are committed to keeping this tradition alive. These storytellers are performing in schools, libraries, and other public venues. The LU.GAR project celebrated the transmission of traditional storytellers to contemporary storytellers and the role of these new agents in keeping the traditions alive and ensuring that they continue to be passed down to future generations.

The LU.GAR project, a collaboration between Memória Imaterial (a Portuguese NGO accredited to provide advisory services to the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage) traditional storytellers, communities (Alenquer, Melgaço, Monção, Paredes de Coura, Valença, and Vila Nova de Cerveira), artists and the theater company Comédias do Minho, began with a brief mapping of oral traditions in the municipalities and, as a result it created a space for dialogue, creativity, and the sharing of stories. It is a reminder of the power of storytelling to connect us to our past, present, and future.

THE EMPLACEMENT OF INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE -AN ECOMUSEUM CASE

The definition of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) promoted by the UNESCO 2003 Convention clearly states that it refers to knowledge and skills but also objects and cultural spaces associated therewith, recognized as such by communities, groups and individuals and transmitted for generations.

This presentation explores the concept of emplacement of cultural practices on two different levels. The first one relates to the enactment of the practice, the element of ICH itself. It is analysed in relation to its embodiment. If bodies are instruments for the expression of experience, places are instruments for its sharing. In this sense places make an integral part of the element and are a crucial aspect for ensuring its transmission which relies on social interaction. The second level explored relates to heritage projects and programmes intended as measures for safeguarding ICH. Emplacement in this context is understood as safeguarding measure which ensures the viability of ICH.

Both levels are explored through one case study, that of the Ecomuseum House of batana, UNESCO good safeguarding practice since 2016. Ecomuseum House of batana is a community-based practice and organisation oriented towards safeguarding the maritime heritage (tangible and intangible) of the City of Rovinj-Rovigno, Croatia.

Ecomuseums as heritage management models are based on two basic concepts, community participation and territoriality. Understanding the importance of holistic and people-centred approach to intangible cultural heritage which is enacted by people in a specific environmental context and providing frameworks which rely on these principles, strengthens the impact of safeguarding measures insuring its viability and enjoyment for future generations.

Co-creation with young adults in a (super)diverse neighbourhood. Making living heritage visible in a museum.

The Dutch Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage (KIEN) implements the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). One of the main tasks for KIEN is to raise awareness for ICH and to make ICH visible. In this, museums can play a significant role. KIEN itself is part of the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem since 2016. This helps KIEN to give heritage communities an extra stage to show their ICH. Later this year, one of the historic buildings in the museum park will be transformed into a House for ICH. The team of KIEN is currently developing concepts for the exhibition space and how to incorporate this place in the bigger storyline of the museum, which focuses on showing the daily live in a historical perspective. Because ICH is alive, dynamic and often closely connected to a specific environment the exhibition has to do justice to these characteristics. Over the years KIEN gained experience in this by taking part or facilitation several co-creations with museums and heritage communities. For example, an exhibition about the circus culture in the Dutch Open Air Museum; the so-called Crafts Labs in several museums; and, in the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, an exhibition about the relationship between animals, humans, and ICH. In this presentation I will highlight another project, a co-creation between the Dutch Open Air Museum, KIEN and seventeen children and young adults living in the (super)diverse neighbourhood Presikhaaf in Arnhem. All these youngsters are members of Presikhaaf University, an organization working for equal opportunities for children and young people living in Presikhaaf. From scratch, the partners of this co-creation developed an exhibition and activity program about the (intangible) heritage of neighbourhood that is important for the youngsters. In this panel presentation I will discuss the focus points for museums when they engage in such co-creations and explore the interrelationships between the neighbourhood, its inhabitants, and their living heritage that is showed in the museum. The lessons learned of this co-creation, and the three other projects, are described in the publication Experiences with co-creation. A museological platform for intangible cultural heritage. Tips and recommendations.