NEMO board member Sergio Servellon concluded the webinar by pointing out that museums have to act and translate intangible cultural heritage (ICH) into their work. He also referred to the international ICH and Museums Project project, of which NEMO was a partner, and said that tangible and intangible cultural heritage are intrinsically linked. There is a new attitude by which shared concerns and aspirations of the actions in museums and in intangible cultural heritage can be addressed. Intangible cultural heritage is indeed a bridge between traditional and contemporary cultural values. ICH not only promotes participation as a method, it defends also diversity and inclusion as such. And with this, it makes museums part of the changing actors for a more just and sustainable world
The recording of the webinar will soon be published online.
Check out the toolkit from the ICH and Museums Project for an introduction to working with intangible cultural heritage.
Intangible cultural heritage is a bridge between traditional and contemporary cultural values. It is the living expression of oral traditions, craft skills, artistic, social or ritual customs, knowledge and know-how handed down to us by previous generations.
The UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) has been ratified in all of the Nordic countries. Active safeguarding work is being done in all countries and national inventories in each country give visibility to many kinds of living heritage.
The inspiration for the seminar stems up from the recent three-year ICH and Museums Project (IMP) that explored the interaction of museum work and intangible heritage practices in a comparative European context, with partner organisations from Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Italy and Switzerland. The Project also collaborated with the International Council of Museums, NEMO – Network of European Museum Organisations and the ICH NGO Forum.
The webinar was organised by the Finnish Heritage Agency in cooperation with the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Museums Project / Workshop intangible heritage (BE), Institute for Language and Folklore (SE), Arts Council Norway, Danish Folklore Archives, Icelandic Ministry of Culture, Greenland's National Museum and Archive, Ålands museum (FI) and Cultural Ministry of the Faroe Islands.
