Participatory Futuring, Museums and Digital Culture: Reclaiming Speculative Approaches in Heritage Work

When: Wednesday, 26^th April 2023  4.00-5.30pm

Where:  Level 1  - RH105, Rutherford House, Bunny St, Pipitea Campus

Jointly Hosted by School of Information Management and Stout Research Centre

Can futuring methodologies open a critical space for heritage work in digital culture? What is the role of speculative approaches in imagining the future of heritage organisations together? What are the values and responsibilities emerging from ‘inhabiting’ the future in the present? This talk reflects on the challenges and opportunities of using participatory futuring methodologies and speculative approaches in critical digital heritage research and practice. It uses as a starting point empirical work carried out through heritage futurescaping workshops in the context of the EU-funded project CoHERE (Critical Heritages: Performing & representing identities in Europe). The participants in the workshops were encouraged to ‘inhabit’ and negotiate futures in which museum and heritage work interfaced with challenges emerging from post-truth politics, artificial intelligence agency and profusion of digital/material heritage resources. Drawing on examples of practices and artefacts designed by the workshop participants, the talk discusses how notion of access, truth and authenticity are being re-imagined and the questions they raise for future action by organisations and individuals.

Biography

Dr Areti Galani researches and teaches in the area of Digital Cultural Heritage and Digital Cultural Communication with particular interest in the theoretical and practice-based exploration of digital technologies. She is the editor and author of the volume European Heritage, dialogue and digital practices (Routledge 2019), and the co-editor of the special issue on ‘Evaluation of Digital Cultural Resources’ in the Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (2019).

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