ILUCIDARE Webinars

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to adapt many of the ILUCIDARE activities to an online or blended format. This was an opportunity to reach a larger audience, who could more easily join online to our events from anywhere in the world. Furthermore, we recorded some of these activities for those who were not able to attend (or want to see them again).

Take a look at our recorded webinars on different topics, by clicking on each main activity link (green text) you reach the playlist of videos linked to the activity. You can use the videos as learning or training material, or to complement other ILUCIDARE resources for a broader and clearer understanding of certain topics or activities;

1/ ILUCIDARE Summer School in Krakow, organised by ICC

1) ILUCIDARE Round Table - introduction to heritage-led innovation

● Panelists: John Orna-Ornstein - National Trust (online), Clara Thys - Herbé, Gabor Sonkoly - Eötvös Loránd University, Aziliz Vandesande - KU Leuven (online), Maria Jimena Quijano Perdomo - KU Leuven

● Chair: Robert Kusek, ICC/Jagiellonian University in Krakow

The roundtable debate gathered a group of notable individuals with considerable experience in the field of heritage and innovation – two practitioners: John Orna-Ornstein, director of culture and engagement at the National Trust, and Clara Thys, the founder of Herbé, a research agency specializing in new destinations for heritage projects; as well as three scholars: professor Gabor Sonkoly from Eötvös Loránd University, as well as Aziliz Vandesande and Maria Jimena Quijano Perdomo from KU Leuven. The session introduced some basic concepts and ideas in the field of heritage-led innovation, including the principles of the ILUCIDARE project and its working hypotheses together with first findings. Its major contribution was to provide the audience with an opportunity to learn about different facets of innovation in heritage – the concept of innovation in heritage studies, innovative uses of heritage, new approaches to heritage interpretation and ownership. The speakers focused predominantly on their understanding of innovation and the way they apply it to their everyday activities and/or projects. During the debate a number of diverse innovation initiatives were discussed, including “Prejudice and Pride” (about LGBTQ+ heritage) and the Paterskerk church and convent renovation project. Also, the session allowed for the first presentation of the ILUCIDARE Innovation Handbook.

2) Heritage-led political innovation

● Panelists: Constanze Itzel - House of European History, Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka - European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (online)

● Chair: Lorena Aldana-Ortega - Europa Nostra

The session welcomed Constanze Itzel, the Director at the House of European History in Brussels, and Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, a Roma activist and the deputy director of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC). Both speakers posed questions about how heritage could adequately and timely respond to social and political demands of our times – particularly about the ways heritage (in this case shared European heritage and marginalised Roma heritage) could lead to some major political changes. Itzel and Mirga-Kruszelnicka also wondered whether heritage bodies/institutions could have any real agency when it came to present-day political agendas and shared their experiences in using heritage to advance their specific causes: strengthening cooperation and the vision of common history among the Europeans, as well as resisting marginalisation, persecution, and anti-Romany sentiments and legislation. Finally, they opened a discussion on the potential of heritage to activate political innovation.

3) Heritage-led environmental innovation

● Panelists: Anna Meenan – Heritage Council (online), Michele Fontefrancesco – University of Gastronomic Sciences (online)

● Chair: Aleksandra Janus, Centrum Cyfrowe (online)

In the session led by Aleksandra Janus (Centrum Cyfrowe, Poland), Michele F. Fontefrancesco (University of Gastronomic Sciences, Italy) discussed the topic of heritage-led innovation related to the environment by presenting two projects dealing with preserving food heritage – the Granaries of Memory and the Arc of Taste. The projects try to deal in innovative ways with the problems of the erosion of the environmental knowledge linked with traditional food production and the destruction of biological and cultural diversity indispensable for building a more sustainable future. Anna Meenan (Heritage Council, Ireland) showed the details of working of the GLAS (Green Low-Carbon Agri-Envionment Scheme) Traditional Farm Buildings Grant Scheme, which provides payments to farmers to help tackle climate change, preserve biodiversity, protect habitats and promote environmentally-friendly farming. Heritage plays an important role, and not only built heritage of the farms or the aesthetic landscape value, but mostly the intangible heritage and traditional building skills that make projects sustainable and add public value.

4) Heritage-led technological innovation

● Panelists: Johan Oomen, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and Daniel Basulto García-Risco, Fundación Santa María la Real del Patrimonio Histórico

● Chair: Maria Drabczyk, ICC

Both speaker, i.e. Daniel Basulto García-Risco (Fundación Santa María la Real del Patrimonio Histórico, Spain) and Johan Oomen (Head of Research and Heritage Services at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, the Netherlands) showed the participants the various ways in which heritage and the demands it posed to its users and interpreters might generate the need for technological innovations. The first speaker using the example of the city of Avila, focused on data-mining software tools. They might be used by contemporary architects and developers while dealing with heritage-sensitive areas and buildings – particularly those that allow for control and measurement of environmental parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, luminosity, different gasses and atmospheric variables in heritage. The second speaker paid attention to digital audiovisual heritage and new instruments that facilitate access to it.

5) Heritage-led legal innovation

● Lecturer: Konrad Gliściński, Jagiellonian University

Konrad Gliściński, researcher and lawyer of the Jagiellonian Centre of Innovation (Poland), delivered a lecture on heritage-led legal innovation. His talk took interest in the relationship between law and heritage and the way heritage influenced a variety of changes with regard to intellectual property and copyright. Another important aspect that was addressed by Gliściński was how new conceptualisation of intellectual and proprietary rights changed our use, including creative use, of heritage, for example in the digital realm.

6) Heritage-led economic innovation

● Panelists: Zuzanna Stańska, DailyArt

Vít Šisler, Charles Games

● Chair: Jakub Zgierski, Superkami

The heritage-led economic innovation session introduced two speakers who developed entrepreneurial endeavors based on their heritage expertise and know-how. Vít Šisler, a co-founder of the Prague-based gaming studio Charles Games, shared his experience of using heritage (particularly WWII history) to develop some educational games and, thus, expand the existing market of video games and attract a new set of users. Zuzanna Stańska talked about creating and running an award-winning DailyArt mobile application which promotes art history in 18 languages and reaches 800.000 people monthly. Both speakers focused on the commercial success of their projects and the way their innovative solutions inspired other entrepreneurs to develop, organize, and run a business based on heritage. The session’s chair - Jakub Zgierski- also shared his experience of using heritage (mainly archival sources) to support the production of commercial games and provided specific examples of heritage application in gaming industry (like Call of Duty 2).

7) Heritage-led social innovation

● Panelists: Trevor White, Little Museum Dublin

Eugen Vada, Network of Private Rural Ethnographic Collections and Museums from Romania

● Chair: Kakatrzyna Jagodzińska, International Cultural Centre

This session allowed two following speakers to share their experiences in creating social impact with heritage projects: Trevor White, the Director of the award-winning people’s Little Museum Dublin, and Eugen Vaida, the founder and president of the Network of Private Rural Ethnographic Collections and Museums from Romania and the “Ambulance for Monuments” initiative. The session brought together two innovative frameworks of change-makers working in the area of museums and historic monuments. Their quite different areas of activity demonstrated multifaceted approaches towards heritage and benefits that both projects generated in the area of inspiring the growth of social capital. While Trevor White focused predominantly on the human factor behind the museum’s core values (history, hospitality and humour) and means to engage local population in building and sustaining a cultural institution, Vaida discussed his “Ambulance for Monuments'' project – the rescue teams for heritage-listed buildings in Romania composed of committed people working on voluntary basis, local communities, and authorities. Both speakers paid some special attention to preservation, promotion and valorisation of heritage through a sustainable education process based on the collaboration between four main actors: owners (community), professionals, policy makers and mediators (NGOs).

8) Social aspects of innovation in heritage

● Panelists: Fausto Cardoso - ILUCIDARE team Ecuador (online), Alicia Tenze - ILUCIDARE team Ecuador (online)

● Chair: Maria Eugenia Sigüencia, ILUCIDARE team Ecuador

The Ecuador-based ILUCIDARE team from the University of Cuenca presented the achievements of projects aiming to build social capital and help deliver social cohesion in local communities. Presentations and discussions focused on the important aspect of social participation in heritage conservation processes using as examples projects done in Susudel and Cuenca, both within the ILUCIDARE project and beyond it.

2/ Activities in Ecuador – Capacity Building in Cuenca and Susudel, organised by UC (in Spanish)

Brief: The Ilucidare Capacity Building process in Ecuador included nine-session joint meetings throughout 2021 in the locations of Cuenca (El Vado neighbourhood) and Susudel, with a periodicity of approximately one meeting per month.

Different hands-on activities were developed throughout the sessions of the CB in Ecuador and boosted the creation of capacity towards the construction of the prototypes of dismantlable structures and the wood-fired oven in Susudel and Multisensorial Tunnel in El Vado.

The CB also promoted cultural activities and popular community festivals have also been refreshed with community-driven initiatives such as the Pinshi, the “Pig King” initiatives and the celebration of “Dia del Cóndor” day in Susudel; and a “Inti Raymi” dance in allusion to the celebration of the summer solstice in Cuenca.

ILUCIDARE Chapter Ecuador has demonstrated that through the exchange of knowledge (rural and urban) during the capacity building sessions, the people from the two different territories have learned from each other despite their undeniable contextual differences.

Below is the list of videos available under the above link (activites in Ecuador):

1) Eighth and final capacity building in Susudel (November 20, 2021)