The CHARTER Alliance is releasing a new series of events, the CHARTER Meetups, aiming to foster exchange between cultural heritage actors to co-create solutions for the cultural heritage sector. The first CHARTER Meetup will take place on March 10th and will focus on the CHARTER model for CH and future challenges for research.
Notes on the programme
Our speakers for the first CHARTER Meetup, Susan Corr (The Heritage Council) and Bosse Lagerqvist (ICOMOS), commented about the programme:
The Faro Convention frames the understanding of cultural heritage in the CHARTER project. The emphasis on ‘people’ in the identification with those resources inherited from the past, has the effect of democratising heritage and its practice, liberating it from the preserve of experts and heritage practitioners as the ‘custodians of heritage for future generations’.Heritage is publicly authored and publicly owned; we as people confer value notwithstanding the development of heritage theory, principles and ethics; the intellectual canon which mediates ‘professional practice’.
The challenge for CHARTER is not only to reflect this phenomenological approach to heritage in the ways or processes whereby meaning or value is conferred but CHARTER must also demonstrate the mechanism that allows this to happen.
Heritage counts through the realisation of its value for society and this in turns drives economic activity. In the graphic that we have proposed, we are suggesting that authoring heritage and owning heritage constitute the same start point and end point where both are functions of public participation.
CHARTER suggests that a circular dynamic occurs between these points across a range of key activities as these serve to recognise and amplify the value of cultural heritage to society in a self-sustaining eco system driven by public engagement.
Our challenge in CHARTER Working Package 2 right now is how to describe the different practices within the heritage area in a conceptual manner. Based on that we intend to define the key skills and knowledge related to each concept, but also generic skills of importance for the whole sector.
The present system of European Skills/Competences, qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) do not justify the broad area of cultural heritage professions as a comprehensive sector of economic importance. The WP2 has therefore initiated a close collaboration with ESCO to find means for improving the situation, and an important starting point is the concepts of different heritage occupations, broadly framed within contemporary and future societal challenges.
Meet the speakers
HERMAN BASHIRON MENDOLICCHIO (University of Barcelona)
I’m the Academic coordinator of the Postgraduate Course on International Cultural Cooperation at the University of Barcelona. I have a PhD in Art History, Theory and Criticism from the University of Barcelona and my lines of research involve subjects related to intercultural processes, participation, travelling, ecology and mobility in contemporary arts, cultural heritage and cultural policies.
NESSA ROCHE (Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Ireland)
I’m a senior architectural advisor on built heritage and architecture policy at the Ministry responsible for heritage in Ireland. I have a PhD in architectural conservation and other qualifications in project management and quality management.
SUSAN CORR (The Heritage Council)
I’m a paper conservator and an accredited member of the Institute of Conservator-Restorers in Ireland. I work in private practice and is consultant to many institutional and private collections. I served both as Secretary General and President of E.C.C.O. until 2020.
BOSSE LAGERQVIST (ICOMOS)
I am an Associate Professor at Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. My subject area is integrated conservation with focus on heritage practices in cultural landscapes, and in industrial and maritime heritage.
Full programme and registrations here.
Learn more about CHARTER model in the article written by Prof. Anna Mignosa (Erasmus University Rotterdam).
Watch an explanatory video about the CHARTER model here.