Turning the past into heritage is an act of cultural empowerment. An act that depends on our constantly changing political, social or emotional relationship with the physical artefact. David Lowenthal once said that “the past is a foreign country reshaped by today, its strangeness domesticated by our own modes of caring for its vestiges”. The reasoning behind the decision to declare the artefact of the past a cultural heritage is constantly being updated, rethought and refined. For our generation, heritage is no longer the most beautiful or oldest fragments of our past. Heritage now is instead a complex testimony of humans as a species.
ICOMOS ISC20C invites the world heritage community to a series of regional seminars on the “Twentieth-Century Historic Thematic Framework” as a tool for rethinking the global narratives associated with 20th-century heritage. Seminars aim not only to develop the knowledge and broad understanding of 20th century heritage but also to support opportunities to present, share and expand their new cases and ideas on the 20th century. The seminar in Kaunas will focus on the topic of “New Nation-states” as a phenomenon of modernizing world. Based on the experience of Kaunas European Capital of Culture, the seminar will debate the role of contemporary interpretations in the process of identifying, understanding and disseminating of this narrative.
Moderator: VAIDAS PETRULIS
Participants: RIIN ANTALU (EE, ICOMOS); MARIJA DRĖMAITĖ (LT); GRZEGORZ PIĄTEK (PL); EDWARD DENISON (UK)
For more: https://isc20c.icomos.org/seminar-1-new-nation-state/