As a senior research assistant at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research I worked alongside Dr. Amalia Sabiescu, who at the time was working on the RICHES project. http://www.riches-project.eu/ The RICHES project is about change and asks citizens to ask questions about cultural heritage:
- How can CH institutions renew and remake themselves?
- How should an increasingly diverse society use our CH?
- How may the move from analogue to digital represent a shift from traditional hierarchies of CH to more fluid, decentred practices?
- How, then, can the EU citizen, alone or as part of a community, play a vital co-creative role?
- What are the limitations of new technologies in representing and promoting CH?
- How can CH become closer to its audiences of innovators, skilled makers, curators, artists, economic actors?
- How can CH be a force in the new EU economy?
RICHES researches answers to these questions by drawing together 10 partners from 6 EU countries and Turkey, experts from cultural institutions, public and national administrations, SMEs, the humanities and social sciences. Its interdisciplinary team researches the context of change in which European CH is transmitted, its implications for future CH practices and the frameworks (cultural, legal, financial, educational, technical) to be put in place for the benefit of all audiences and communities in the digital age. RICHES employs traditional and innovative research methods and tools:
Amalia was responsible for contributing to D4.1 European identity, belonging and the role for digital CH – Report outlining the results of a qualitative study that examined the importance of (digital) Cultural Heritage for identity-building processes within European communities and its role for the development of a European identity. She used !Flamenko Coventry 2014! Festival as underpinning research for the case study. As a continuation of this work I co-authored the Policy Brief which was produced March 2016.