Heritage 'itineraries' from around the world: experts from twelve countries for CHAIN 2024

Why do the routes concern us?

The Department of Humanities at the University of Catania will host the CHAIN 2024 international conference – Cultural Heritage Routes. Safeguarding, Participation, Sustainable Development – from February 27th to 29th, organised by researchers and doctoral students in Sciences for Cultural Heritage and Production. The event is organised under the patronage of ICCROM, DiCultHer, Fondazione Santagata for the Economics of Culture, Federculture and FAI Catania, as well as in partnership with ESACH (European Students' Association for Cultural Heritage) and Archeo Unict.

Following its success in previous years, the 2024 event gathers an even larger number of sign-ups from a variety of sectors of the international scientific and cultural landscape, marking a further step forward from the original project. Scholars, projects and associations from twelve different countries from the US to the Philippines, UK and all over Europe will participate in the conference. Since its foundation (2020), CHAIN (Cultural Heritage Academic Interdisciplinary Network) has been building a network between researchers, organisations and practitioners on issues and perspectives related to cultural heritage, with a focus on enhancing the role played by research and related good practices.

The positive experience gained during the past editions has encouraged the young researchers joining the network to find a new research theme focused on cultural heritage routes understood not only in a geographical sense, but also in a symbolic one, that is, as trajectories of intersection and exchange between ‘pathways’ aimed at the preservation, enhancement and sustainable development of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. These paths – in accordance with some fundamental pronouncements of the Council of Europe on human rights, democracy and intercultural exchange – do not necessarily lead to ‘physical’ places such as archaeological sites, cultural parks, museums, etc., but can also represent a way to get in touch with ‘hybrid’ tangible and intangible cultural expressions.

Sharing routes between research and public sharing

The papers presented at the conference will be based on three different keys that look at 'routes' as

• an opportunity to safeguard cultural heritage;
• a tool for participation in the enjoyment of cultural heritage;
• a strategy for sustainable development of cultural heritage.

The focus on an interdisciplinary approach led to the drafting of an inclusive programme enriched by contributions from different areas of knowledge involved in the enhancement, management and protection of cultural heritage, ranging from arts to collections, from landscape to new media, from ethnography to participatory communities, from museology to new techniques of enhancement, from digitisation to the introduction of new sustainable strategies. This will provide a stimulating and thought-provoking discussion of the topic, contributing to the development of the heritage debate on an international level.

As can be seen from the official programme (http://bit.ly/chain2024programme), the conference proceedings will also be sorted according to this structure and consequently divided into as many study sessions each of which will be introduced by a distinguished keynote speaker:

• Rosanna Cappelli will introduce the first day of studies (Safeguarding) with a keynote entitled: ‘Esistere come donna’. Percorsi e strategie editoriali per una nuova geografia della creatività femminile (i.e. ‘Existing as a woman. Routes and publishing strategies for a new geography of female creativity). Former member of the Mibac Italian national commission for cultural heritage enhancement activities, in 2010 became general director of the Art, Exhibitions and Museums division of the Electa publishing house (Mondadori) and since 2020 managing director of the same. Distinguished for her research commitment in the field of heritage policies and management and enhancement practices between the public and private sectors.
• Cristina Gazzola, will be presenting the second day (Participation) with a paper entitled Heritage as a tool for socio-educational and linguistic-cultural mediation interventions in communities. From artwork to storytelling and storydoing, in which the themes of inclusion and accessibility will be addressed through good practices developed through work on and with heritage. She is responsible for the coordination and planning of educational activities with a view to maximum accessibility and inclusion for the Department of Educational Services of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. Her activity as a scholar regards the field of museum education based on the idea of multi-sensory routes for visitors with cognitive disabilities and the organisation of educational projects to promote integration, cultural access and the creative and expressive participation of adults and children from different countries and cultures.
• Antonia Gravagnuolo will introduce the third and last day (Sustainable Development) with a paper entitled Adaptive re-use of cultural heritage as circular economy strategy, dedicated to digitisation, new technologies and landscape. She is an architect and CNR ISPC researcher in evaluation methods for cultural heritage and landscape regeneration, as well a coordinator of the Horizon 2020 projects Be.CULTOUR on circular models for cultural tourism (2021-2024) and COSME Trace (2023-2025), Co-coordinator Horizon 2020 CLIC (2017-2021).

The papers presented at the conference will be disseminated through a final publication in the CHAIN series (Duetredue).

CHAIN 2024 is also made possible thanks to the support of sponsors from the Catania, along with others: San Pellegrino (Nestlé), Tomarchio, Alcantara, Azienda agricola Musa, Oleificio Russo.

How to participate          

The event will take place in hybrid mode: in person at the "Vincenzo La Rosa" Lecture Hall - Palazzo Ingrassia, Department of Humanities, University of Catania, and online via MS Teams. 

In order to participate online, it is necessary to register free of charge (to receive the links) on the website: https://bit.ly/Chain2024TeamsRegistration. 

At the end of the conference, it will be possible to request a certificate of attendance for both types of participation.

FOR FURTHER INFO

Email: info@chain-conference.com; segreteria@chain-conference.com

Sito: www.chain-conference.com