International Conference Sustainable Digital Heritage, Terra Mosana

The International Conference of Terra Mosana on the topic of Sustainable Digital Heritage has been held recently both in Maastricht and online. The conference marked the closing of the Interreg Euregio Meuse-Rhine project Terra Mosana. The conference was organized by MACCH in collaboration with the Municipality of Maastricht.

On the 29^th of September, the opening ceremony took place at the city hall of Maastricht and celebrated the achievements of the Terra Mosana project. The ceremony included a keynote lecture by Prof Sally Wyatt, short speeches by representatives of the participating regions and cities, as well as a presentation by coordinator of Interreg EMR Mark Vos, a preview of the key achievements of the project. The ceremony concluded with live demonstrations of the digital outputs of the project by the different city partners of the project (Tongeren, Julich, Maastricht, Liege, Leopoldsburg, and Achen). In addition, a series of scientific session were organized online in the following days to cover the sub-themes of collaborative practice, digital storytelling, governance and legal frameworks, as well as participatory practice of digital heritage.

A recording of the opening ceremony is available here.

The conference brought together researchers, policy makers, professionals and practitioners to explore the long-term sustainability of digital heritage. On Thursday the 30th of September, an online panel session on the theme of Digital Storytelling for Cultural Heritage was chaired by Prof Sally Wyatt. Three presentations from India, UK and The Netherlands addressed the advantages and challenges of such collaborative practices in terms of interdisciplinary, and cross-institutional teamwork.

On Friday the 1st of October, the conference program included a workshop on Digital Storytelling for Cultural Heritage that was organized by Dr Nicole Basaraba, as well as two panel sessions, chaired by Dr Costas Papadopoulos. The first session included three presentations from the USA, Ireland and Egypt, while the second session was dedicated to four presentations by Terra Mosana partners from the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. Both sessions discussed how the different types of heritage information can be narrated and presented through digital formats in an engaging and meaningful way.

The conference program was extended over the following week. The theme of Governance and Legal Frameworks for Digital Heritage was discussed on Thursday the 7th of October over two online panel sessions, chaired by Prof Anselm Kamperman Sanders, and Dr Anke Moerland. The sessions included four presentations from Belgium and The Netherlands addressing questions of copyright protection of the original work, ownership of the generated digital work and access regimes to the digitized cultural content, as well as how ownership and access should be regulated.

The last day of the conference covered the theme of Participatory Approaches and Social Inclusion in Digital Heritage. On Friday the 8th of October, a workshop was organized by Dr Eslam Nofal on the Participatory Design for the Future of Terra Mosana, and an online panel session was organized and chaired by Dr Vivian van Saaze. The session included three presentations from Macau, UK, and The Netherlands exploring how online and on-site participatory and co-creation approaches can be further developed and applied in the context of digital heritage.

For the full programme including abstracts of all presentations, please visit the conference webpage.