Date: 28 – 30 September 2022
Venue: National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague and online
Registration: here
Europeana’s annual conference 2022 aims to explore how to collaboratively build a common data space for cultural heritage and raise voices from across the sector to empower digital transformation and explore the role digital cultural heritage plays in today’s and tomorrow’s world.
Conference Programme – morning sessions’ keynotes
Day one: Making digital culture count: perspectives and provocations on the data space for digital cultural heritage. Rehana Schwinniger-Ladak, Head of Unit ‘Interactive Technologies, Digital for Culture and Education’ at the European Commission, will open the conference and then hand over to the first keynote speaker, Harry Verwayen, General Director of the Europeana Foundation and Vice President of Time Machine Organisation. Building on discussions begun at Europeana 2021, he will explore the data space in practice – what it means for Europeana as we know it – and share why it’s something that institutions across the cultural heritage sector should be excited about.
Day two will focus on Making digital culture count – stories, culture and society. Keynote speaker is Olia Hercules, author of the award-winning cookbooks Mamushka, Kaukasis and Summer Kitchens. Olia was born in Ukraine, and is co-founder of a global fund-raising initiative #CookForUkraine. She has received the Champions of Change award as well as a place among 25 most influential women as chosen by British Vogue in 2022. Her talk will explore how social media, storytelling and that wonderful intangible heritage – food – can bring people together and create positive change.
Day three we will be turning to EuropeanaTech to explore how technology paves the way to digital inclusion and cultural heritage preservation in Making digital culture count – technology matters. Keynote speaker Caitlin Southwick, Executive Director of Ki Culture, an international non-profit organisation working to unite culture and sustainability, will begin the day. Her talk will explore climate data and technology in the cultural heritage sector, followed by a panel discussion.
Afternoon sessions
70% of the programme for Europeana 2022 – over 30 sessions – was co-created with cultural heritage professionals across the sector who responded to the call for proposals. This has resulted in a rich afternoon of presentations, workshops and activities. The conference will host two hybrid sessions which participants can join both on-site and online, alongside a number of online only talks on a diverse range of topics. There will be ‘silent rooms’ available for those joining the conference in person who would like to watch online sessions.
Participation of young people is in focus as, honouring 2022 as the European Year of Youth, several sessions will look at youth involvement and explore the specific role which youth can play in building the data space. Digitisation, 3D and IIIF are all on the menu as EuropeanaTech takes centre stage, and there are plenty of sessions to inspire cultural heritage institutions about how to encourage reuse of their collections – through storytelling, education and tourism.
Recognising some of the most pressing issues of the present day, climate change is in focus with presentations from Europeana’s Climate Action Community. And we will hear from Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) about the collaborative preservation of social heritage, alongside sessions which will explore how cultural heritage can be protected in crisis situations.