"Heritage Horizons" Forum

Lviv and Uman are important cities for Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian history, with a huge potential of cultural heritage for inclusive and sustainable local development. Lviv and Uman have big and small towns between that still keep the traces of multicultural past. As a whole, they symbolize the complexity of the history of borderlands and the richness of European heritage. In such towns, the histories of many generations, nations, religions, social groups, political groups, and individuals have been closely intertwined in one city that lives and breathes in histories. The ReHERIT project is implemented to prevent histories from being parallel or forgotten. 

The "Heritage Horizons" Forum is an opportunity and an invitation to join the conversation with project participants and cultural heritage ecosystem actors from all over Ukraine. The Forum will focus on exchange of experience, best practices and pain points, local dimensions, horizontal and cross-regional networking, and cross-border and international cooperation opportunities. The event will focus on key benchmarks and paths to understand heritage and deal with it in different contexts in Ukraine.

We plan to add to the conversation over 80 participants engaged in the project (stakeholders, experts, researchers, partners) and a broader audience of anyone interested in the processes of contemplating and elaborating on the heritage as a shared space for dialogue in the present.

The program includes 3 sections that have a keynote address, a discussion, a panel, and a presentation. A city walk has been planned additionally, on the basis of the materials for tour guides designed within the project, and a presentation of video products on common heritage, responsibility, and opportunities. 

FORUM PROGRAM

The program covers two days and includes three structural units around certain topics and approaches:

• Heritage Management. On practices and concepts of managing cultural heritage on different levels (local, national, international), on policies and strategies and different governance processes
• Heritage Interpretation. On concepts to understanding and assessing heritage, the role of experts and various stakeholders, on actualization of heritage, on expanding and changes in the treatment of one’s “(non)own” heritage
• Heritage Engagement. On the processes of including stakeholders, various parties and perspectives into practices of dealing with heritage, from management processes to interpretation and use

PROGRAM STRUCTURE

The event structure is about Experiences - Localization - Horizons.

The division reflects the logical frame of the “ReHerit: Shared Responsibility for Common Heritage” project. It is an opportunity to summarize and present the project outcomes, and think together of how to scale the ideas and ensure their continuity.

The "Experiences" section will present the practices of working with cultural heritage as illustrated by the cities of Lviv and Uman: sociological survey, projects for tour guides and educators, signage of Jewish heritage sites, reconstruction of the “Koliyivshchyna square”, mapping historical objects, development of tools and approaches to work with heritage, strategies for tourist and pilgrimage ecosystem.

The "Localization" section will show a broader range of experiences in presenting 10 towns that won the mini grant programme (Rivne, Ostroh, Khmelnytskyi, Izmail, Bibrka, Ivano-Frankivsk, Medzhybizh, Chyhyryn, Chortkiv, Nadvirna). The coordinators will share about the challenges and opportunities of the implemented projects – from the digital mapping of heritage sites, the creation of 3D postcards, street exhibitions and conferences to strategizing and working with the community. 

The "Horizons" section is an invitation to join a broader discussion in a format of a summary on modified understanding of heritage: on the trends, problem points, and opportunities.

FOR WHO?

The event will be useful and interesting to:

• Culture operators, experts in cultural heritage
• Authorities, NGOs and initiatives
• Workers of culture, tourist and educational institutions
• Experts in related areas (culture managers, sociologists, urbanists)

HOW CAN I JOIN

To participate in the Forum, please, register at the link: https://forms.gle/qoe1az8WPxFSvXFs5. Deadline for the registration - April 8, 2021.

After confirmation, you will receive the detailed event agenda and the guidelines.

If you cannot participate during the entire Forum programme, please, register to watch the streaming of its parts.

Working language - Ukrainian.

About ReHERIT project

ReHERIT is the project to rethink, actualize, and develop the capacity of material and non-material cultural heritage in Ukraine focusing on the relevance of cultural heritage for economic, tourist, cultural, and educational development of Ukraine’s cities. 

ReHERIT is implemented by the Office for Preservation of Historical Environment at Lviv City Council, the Center for Urban History of East and Central Europe, the Laboratory of Urban Space, and the Office for Culture of Uman City Council.

When working on the project, we created a portal of cultural heritage reherit.org.ua to share good practices in working with cultural heritage. It posted white books, cases, stories of cultural heritage, interviews with experts, training and methodological materials for tour guides and teachers.