Intangible Cultural Heritage

Please join us for this online discussion exploring cultural heritage.

Join this timely event, led by the RSA Fellows’ Media, Creative Industries, Culture and Heritage Network, which is open to Fellows, their guests and in particular attendees of all disciplines from across the globe, whether ICH practitioners or generally interested. The United Kingdom Government recently confirmed its intention to ratify the 2003 UNESCO Convention for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This resonates with “People, Place and Planet” and overall aspects of the RSA “Design for Life”.

This UNESCOConvention seeks to protect the crafts, practices, and traditions which are recognised as being key part of national life and providing a sense of identity to communities. Please see links to Joanne’s book and the DCMS consultation as shown. The event will begin with expert Joanne Orr presenting on her recently published book “Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Culture Heritage”. There will then be facilitated dialogue with the panel listed below and the audience. Participants are encourage to engage with the DCMS consultation, and the third footnote below shows an extract from the DCMS website.

Extract from DCMS: Guiding principles

A key point of Intangible Cultural Heritage is that it is distinct from traditional fixed or material heritage. Intangible Cultural Heritage is far broader, crosses different cultural sectors, has less criteria, and is owned by people themselves. This requires a different approach to other forms of heritage. We are therefore approaching the implementation of the Convention with some guiding principles taken from the UNESCO definition, which will inform the way we ratify and implement the Convention. Community-based, bottom up Intangible Cultural Heritage can only be heritage when it is recognised as such by the communities, groups or individuals who create, maintain and transmit it – without their recognition, nobody else can decide for them that a given expression or practice is their heritage.

Find the link to the consultation here.

Speakers

JOANNE ORR, Consultant and Author

Joanne Orr has over thirty-five years of experience in the international heritage field, currently working as an independent consultant. She is a trained facilitator and part of the Global Capacity-Building Network for the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Joanne has previously served as a Director on the boards of UKNC for UNESCO, ICOM and the Cultural Protection Fund Advisory Committee. She has held senior positions in several museums in the UK and was for fourteen years the CEO of Museums Galleries Scotland before working at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Canada. Her research interests include intangible cultural heritage and the links to global challenges.

Daniel Carpenter, Executive Director, Heritage Crafts

Daniel Carpenter has worked in the arts, crafts and heritage sectors for the past 18 years. He was one of the founders of Heritage Crafts back in 2009 whilst he was working for Creative Lives (formerly Voluntary Arts), the national charity set up to promote active participation in everyday creativity. He led Heritage Crafts’ Pre-Apprenticeship project in West Somerset in 2017, and was commissioned in 2018 to lead the research on the second edition of Red List of Endangered Crafts, before being recruited onto the staff team in 2019. He is a Trustee of Arts&Heritage, an Ambassador of The Fathom Trust, a judge for the Global Eco Artisan Awards, and a Committee of Recommendation Member for the Ambacht in Beeld Festival in the Netherlands.

Phil Foxwood, DCMS

Phil Foxwood works on World Heritage and other UNESCO issues at DCMS, a department in which he has fulfilled various roles over the last five years. Before joining the civil service, Phil worked at the British Film Institute and in film exhibition. He thus clearly has extensive knowledge about the role of the State Party in World Heritage and current issues being explored, but will in this event concentrate on Intangible Cultural Heritage, the current consultation and the submission of elements for potential inclusion in the UK.

Professor Mairéad Nic Craith BA, BEd, MA, PhD, MRIA, FAcSS

Mairéad Nic Craith is Professor of Public Folklore at the Institute for Northern Studies (INS) at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Before coming to Scotland she was Director of the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages at Ulster University. A member of ICOMOS, she is particularly interested in living heritage and has engaged with a range of international organisations in this regard. Her current research focuses on knowledge and nature in traditional folktales. Mairéad is a member of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics and a Board Member of the John Moriarty Institute for Ecology and Spirituality in Ireland. Her most recent book is The Vanishing World of the Islandman.