Seminar: Living Cultural Heritage and the Spectrum of Worldviews
The seminar “Living Cultural Heritage and the Spectrum of Worldviews” is the first of its kind organized in Finland. The keynotes and workshops will lead participants to learn more about ICH and to discuss the connections between living heritage, worldviews and different religions.
The event is organized by the Finnish Heritage Agency in cooperation with the Ecclesiastical Board / Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Finnish Association for Cultural Heritage Education in Finland and the Culture and Religion Forum FOKUS NGO.
In recent years, the perspective of cultural heritage has expanded from the tangible to the intangible – instead of buildings, monuments and museum objects, people are at the center of it. What does cultural heritage mean in people’s everyday lives and celebrations, what values do they convey to us, whose cultural heritage is being talked about and on the other hand, what is being kept quiet about? Intangible cultural heritage offers a variety of starting points for understanding the themes of belonging to the community and, on the other hand, being left outside. Living cultural heritage has a lot to offer in work related to world views and it also gives tools to face other people’s cultural heritage sensitively.
The aim of the seminar is to learn more about intangible cultural heritage, to deepen the understanding of cultural identity and to strengthen one’s own competence in diversity. The workshop’s practical tips support, for example, the building of children’s and young people’s self-image, the acceptance of diversity and ultimately a better society for all of us.
The work is related to the implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, for which the Finnish Heritage Agency is responsible in Finland. There are already 240 examples from more than 400 different communities in the Wiki-inventory of Living Heritage. Furthermore, the event connects with the spirit of the new Cultural Heritage Strategy (2023) and also follows the principles of the Faro Convention, where the main goal of which is to strengthen the connection between cultural heritage, identity and sustainable development in society.
The event is aimed at representatives of different viewing communities, organizations, trainers, educators and researchers. The language of the seminar is Finnish. The event is part of the European Heritage Days. A video of the event is available in Finnish on the Elävä perintö Youtube channel.