From digital demonstrations to mountain field trips – DACCHE partner meeting in Levanger, Norway
In the beginning of April, the DACCHE consortium gathered in Levanger, Norway to discuss, be inspired and try out new methods for engaging people on the topic of climate change and cultural heritage. When looking at the photos from the trip, one recurring theme stands out - people sitting together, talking to each other and sharing their stories and visions for the future.
Demonstrating digital possibilities
The meeting started off with demonstrations of the work in progress of some of the project’s digital productions. Local stakeholders from the heritage sector in Trøndelag were invited to experience parts of the XR exhibition developed in the project. Through immersive technology, they could interact with 3D scanned museum artifacts – free from the limitations of traditional glass cases. The excitement in the room was evident when talking about the possibilities that XR technology brings for museums wanting to make their collections more engaging and accessible.
Inspiring visit to Stiklestad
As a contrast to the digital focus in the morning, the associated partner Museene Arven invited the project partners to their museum Stiklestad Nasjonale Kultursenter and an experience with all senses. Gunhild Rikstad and Hanna Mellemsether from the museum team shared about the museum’s ongoing work and development. They shared how the museum has incorporated co-creation into the core of its practice, for example asking high school students about what they think would make the museum more interesting for visitors.
Stiklestad’s educator Øystein Viem greeted us in medieval costume and showed around the medieval farmstead of Stiklestad. He also hosted a dinner where he told more about the daily life in a medieval farm while offering dishes which were prepared according to historical sources (but with less spices – our modern palate is less keen on the taste of cloves and cinnamon than the medieval one). After the tasty meal, Øystein showed the long house which has been built with historical techniques to showcase what a house in the transition from the Viking age to the medieval times might have looked like. His storytelling kept on during the whole evening – covering the hunt, the worship, the craft, the music to name a few themes.
Telling and sharing stories – pilot workshops on climate change and cultural heritage
A major focus of the meeting was to continue testing and refining workshop formats on cultural heritage and climate change. While earlier pilots in Ireland had involved schoolchildren and community groups, this time the participants were university students from Norway and Sweden.
In the first workshop, the participants started of exploring the topic of cultural heritage and what they want to save for the future. They then moved on to discussing the impact of climate change and what changes they have witnessed in the last decades, before crafting a manifesto on what needs to be done to safeguard their heritage for the future.
The second workshop took place in the mountains at Skalstugan, right at the Swedish-Norwegian border. The students, coming from diverse educational backgrounds such as tourism studies, eco engineering and multimedia studies at Nord University and Mid Sweden University, got introduced to the Sámi culture and how it is closely tied to the landscape – and already being affected by climate change. They learned how traditional practices like reindeer herding are challenged both by rising temperatures and new green infrastructure such as wind farms.
One story which stuck with many participants was shared by NCK’s director Charina Knutson who told about a meeting with a reindeer herder who described how he had used the same permanent snow patch as food storage for years and years when following the reindeers in the mountains in the summer – but the snow patch had now disappeared and he had to bring a diesel fuelled refrigerator instead. A vivid image of how climate change is changing traditions and traditional knowledge.
After the tour in Skalstugan, we transferred to Tännforsen Tourist station where we got served a fantastic lunch followed by a workshop on storytelling by Iñaki Escudero. The participants were asked to create a story about what they want to tell future generations – what story would help preserve the values that they had taken part of in the morning?
In both workshops, the rooms buzzed with lively discussions, reminding us of the importance of creating spaces where people can reflect on and share their thoughts about big existential questions—like what we want to preserve for the future.
