Museums and intangible heritage: towards a third space in the heritage sector
On 26 February 2020, the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Museums Project is hosting its Concluding Symposium in Brussels. The conference offers a public forum for key stakeholders from the fields of intangible heritage and museums, such as heritage practitioners, museum professionals, policy makers, academics and representatives of transnational networks. They will be summarizing the theoretical and practical insights that have been pooled throughout the years of cooperation in Europe around the topic of ICH and Museums since 2017. Based upon the IMP Project, future-oriented recommendations and methodologies for both policies and practice will be launched.
Background
When intangible cultural heritage and museums meet, numerous opportunities come about. For example, museums can enrich their object-based collections by including testimonies and practices relating to living, intangible heritage. Heritage practitioners and communities, on the other hand, can gain a wider audience, and can benefit from museum documentation and preservation expertise in order to safeguard their particular branch of intangible cultural heritage.
At the same time, intangible cultural heritage and museums can also appear at odds with each other, raise debate, or even bring about fields of tension. For example, how can museums avoid the trap of “freezing” intangible cultural heritage in time by integrating it into more static collections? How may we assure that heritage practitioners and communities are sufficiently being heard in display settings? What are the best ways to bring audiences into the museum, allowing for participatory experiences, yet avoiding the commodification of intangible heritage?
Over the past three years, the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Museums Project (IMP) has tackled these and many other questions, and explored the interaction of museum work and intangible heritage practices in a comparative European context, with Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed (Belgium), Kenniscentrum Immaterieel Erfgoed Nederland (the Netherlands), Maison des Cultures du Monde – Centre français du patrimoine culturel immateriél (France), SIMBDEA (Italy), and Verband der Museen der Schweiz / Bundesamt für Kultur (Switzerland) as partner organizations. They collaborated with ICOM International, ICH NGO Forum and NEMO – Network of European Museum Organisations, and were among others supported by the European Commission’s Creative Europe Programme, the Flemish Government, and the Swiss Federal Office of Culture. The project’s five previous meetings took place in each partner country, focusing on intangible cultural heritage, museums and diversity (Rotterdam, NL, 2017), participation (Palermo, IT, 2018), urbanised society (Bern, CH, 2018), innovation (Aubusson, FR, 2019) and cultural policies (Mechelen, BE, 2019). These conferences featured in depth theoretical contributions, workshops, artistic co-creations, numerous discussions and many inspirational testimonies from the fields of museums and intangible cultural heritage.
An open invitation
Starting from an initiative that has been gathering dozens of cases, experiences, museums and ICH practitioners, professionals and decision makers from Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, it now reaches out to you. We warmly invite you to join this on-going process for exploring the various ways in which museums and safeguarding living heritage go together, to step into reciprocal understanding of different methods, possibilities and approaches, and to foster fruitful interfaces of museum activity with living heritage, to be taken towards future elaboration.
Cover images: Pien van Grinsven
26 February 2020 from 08:00 to 17:00
Check out the program
Le Bouche à Oreille, Brussels
Click here for livestreaming of the event on 26 February.
Day Chair: Dr. Janet Blake (University of Shahid Beheshti, Iran)
9h00 | Coffee and registration |
9h30 |
Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
9h40 |
Opening of the Symposium By Dr. Marc Vervenne (University of Leuven & Flemish Commission for UNESCO) |
9h50 |
Introduction and reflections on the course of the IMP project By Kia Tsakiridis (ICH & Museums Project Coordinator, Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed) |
10h40 |
Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
10h50 |
Short presentation of the IMP book and toolbox By Tamara Nikolic Djeric (Ethnographic Museum of Istria, Batana Eco-Museum & University of Zagreb) and Jasper Visser (VISSCH+STAM) |
11h20 |
Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
11h30 | Coffee break |
11h50 |
Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
12h00 |
Keynote speech "Discursive Crossings in Liminal Spaces" - Abstract By Dr. Amareswar Galla (Professor of Inclusive Cultural Leadership & Director, International Centre for Inclusive Cultural Leadership (ICICL), Anant National University, Ahmedabad, India - Founding Executive Director of the International Institute for the Inclusive Museum, Australia/India/USA) |
12h50 |
Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
13h00 | Lunch |
13h50 | Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
14h00 |
Roundtable discussion Moderated by Dr. Janet Blake (University of Shahid Beheshti, Iran) The roundtable will feature representatives from international partner organizations that were instrumental in the succesful completion of the Intangible Cultural Heritage & Museums Project.
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15h00 | Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
15h10 | Coffee break |
15h30 | Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
15h40 |
Parallel sessions on the book and the toolkit
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16h40 | Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
16h50 |
Presentation of the IMP Declaration By the IMP Steering Group and Think Thank |
17h20 | Video testimonial: inspirational practices in Museums and ICH |
17h30 |
Concluding remarks By Dr. Marc Jacobs (University of Antwerp) |
18h00 | End of the Symposium |
Click here for a summary of the video testimonials. (Videography: (c) Pien van Grinsven)
Registrations for the Concluding Symposium is now closed, but the event will also be available to follow through livestreaming.
The event takes place in Le Bouche à Oreille, Rue Félix Hap 11, 1040 Etterbeek (Brussels).