"Collaboration in Times of Crisis: Preserving Natural and Cultural Heritage"

From 27 to 28 April 2023, the international conference "Collaboration In Times Of Crisis: Preserving Natural And Cultural Heritage" took place in Tbilisi, Georgia, where I presented my research related to the role of social media and communal archiving for Aleppians displaced from Syria.

The conference explored the value of collaboration when working to preserve natural and cultural heritage; before, during and after times of crisis. We will bring together international experts with a shared interest in the protection of heritage, from various backgrounds, disciplines, and approaches.

Conflict, criminal activities, and the impacts of the climate crisis - alongside fundamental changes to social, political, and economic systems - have long represented a serious threat to both natural and cultural heritage. Understanding the potential impacts of complex and dynamic situations, managing various risks, as well actively addressing threats are all necessary stages in their successful protection. Rarely are these things, we can do alone.

Through the conference, we explored key thematic areas, including:

• The value of networks and alternative frameworks for cooperation

• The civic role of museums and heritage organisations; before, during and after crisis.

• Partnership beyond traditional boundaries of working – with particular reference to engagement with humanitarian organisations, the media and the military.

Culture Summit 2019, Abu Dhabi - Invited Speaker

"How can new technologies support heritage in emergencies?”
April 10, 2019

“Cultural heritage provides a wayfinding sign that reorients people have the disorientation of disaster.” [quote from my talk].

Invited by UNESCO, I was glad to share thoughts about the role of and need for preservation strategies in humanitarian settings. I was joined by colleagues Olivier van Damme, Programme Specialist for Planning and Coordination, UNOSAT, Yves Ubelmann, President, ICONEM, Emma Cunliffe, Research Associate, Cultural Property Protection and Peace, Newcastle University and Martin Roeske, from Public Policy & Government Relations MENA at Google.

During this discussion, I talked about my experience with refugees, archiving digital and analog personal records.

Culture Summit Abu Dhabi took place from Sunday 7 April to Thursday 11 April 2019.

Culture Summit Abu Dhabi is a forum that convenes leaders from the fields of the arts, heritage, media, museums, public policy and technology, to identify ways in which culture can build bridges and promote positive change. In its 2019 edition, Culture Summit was attended by 450 delegates from 90 countries.

The Summit was organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi in collaboration with five global partners that curated and led on their specific area of expertise. These partners are the Royal Academy of Arts, UNESCO, Guggenheim, The Economist Events and Google.

Theme – Cultural Responsibility & New Technology

How can cultural agents be more engaged in addressing global challenges?

Can creativity and technology be harnessed for positive change?

Culture Summit Abu Dhabi 2019 addressed the theme of Cultural Responsibility and New Technology to reflect the urgency of our times. It brought together cultural leaders, practitioners and experts from art, museums, media, cultural heritage and technology to advocate a central and effective role for culture in global society. It showcased creative solutions by key participants in the cultural and creative industries, and generate new strategies and thinking on topics including cultural diversity, heritage protection, artistic freedom, public art and digital activation.

We seek answers, policy recommendations and ideas on cultural responsibility and society in the 21st Century.

A Vision for Aleppo - Lemkin 5th Annual Reunion

March 19-20, 2019

Each year the Shattuck Center hosts the Lemkin Reunion, a gathering named in honor of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who lost his family in the Holocaust and first coined the word genocide. He campaigned tirelessly during his life to ensure that the crime of genocide was codified as an international crime. The Lemkin Reunion gathers policymakers involved in responding to atrocity crimes and assesses the lessons they learned.

I was grateful for the opportunity to present a paper outlining potential frameworks for practice in the field, related to the role of heritage recovery and conflict transformation.

From the Lemkin Reunion: “March 2019 marks eight years since people in a wide web of villages and cities across the Syrian landscape took to the streets in defiance of the Assad family’s rule. Initially responding with gunfire, imprisonment and torture, the regime’s strategy evolved into the carpet bombing and mass destruction of whole rural and urban communities, culminating in the forced transfer of all remaining residents from areas such as Ghouta and eastern Aleppo, which remain largely uninhabited. Although the fighting has ebbed, the war in Syria has not ended and a political settlement has not been reached. The near ten million displaced, mainly in harsh conditions in and around Syria, do not feel safe to return to their neighbourhoods and villages. However, the Syrian government has promulgated laws enabling the construction of development projects where displaced communities once resided with no or few guarantees of compensation for displaced property owners. One such project, Marota City, plotted over the demolished informal district of Basateen al-Razi, is already under construction. What will reconstruction under the current conditions serve? Under what conditions can reconstruction in Syria be equitable? “

Destruction of Memory: Film Screening & Expert Dialogue

February 2nd, Wasserman Cinemateque, Brandeis University
 The destruction of culture - of buildings, books and art - is often not an accidental consequence of conflict. It's used as a tool of war - a conscientious strategy to destroy the collective memory of a people. This new documentary, based on the book by Robert Bevan, offers stories of resistance, of heritage protection and rebuilding. Most importantly, it asks the viewer a vital question of our time, "How can we save the story of who we are?"

The screening will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Tim Slade and András Riedlmayer, an expert witness on cultural destruction and the head of the Documentation Center for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. With Leigh Swigart, Director of Programs in International Justice and Society at the Ethics Center, Justice and Public Life and Interim Director of the Rose Art Museum Kristin Parker. 

The screening is a featured event of 'Deis Impact Week and is sponsored in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

#culturecannotwait

Aleppo Design Lab

What role can the arts play in the rebuilding of communities traumatized by war? I invited my colleague Cindy Cohen, who heads the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, and her students in the undergraduate minor Creativity, the Arts & Social Transformation to explore through a Design Lab. We invited experts in public policy, arts and peace building, and architecture to introduced important context that informed our thinking. Over the course of three days we workshopped questions and created a proposal supported by theories in creative peace building and culture as a human right. Read more about the Lab here. Participants included Robert Templer and Al Hakam Shaar from The Aleppo Project, Hungary, Eylem Erturk from Andokultur, Turkey, Rim Lababidi from Syria, and Jane Wilbur Sapp, from United States.

ALEPPO DESIGN LAB: Final Day

On November 15th, students in the class Introduction to Creativity, the Arts and Social Transformation (Brandeis University) introduced their design lab ideas to a panel of experts including architect Rim Lababidi (UCL, Qatar) and Al Hakam Shaar (The Shattuck Center on Conflict Negotiation and Recovery, Hungary), both from Aleppo, Syria.  Students concluded that the process allowed them to feel closer to the war in Syria, even identifying similar links to issues related to polarization, the erasure of identity and the violence of gentrification in the United States.

A report will be listed soon and shared with The Aleppo Project.