Paper submission deadline extended for NSK 2021 international virtual conference on heritage protection
Owing to recent unfavourable developments related to the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, the 2021 international conference of the National and University Library in Zagreb Solidarity in culture: Heritage protection under conditions of crisis will entirely be held as a virtual event, from 18 to 20 March. The deadline for the submission of abstracts has been extended to 31 October 2020.
The aim of the conference is to highlight the significance of developing a carefully thought out, integrated and inclusive approach to the protection of cultural heritage, provide a platform for wider professional debate on various aspects of intra- and inter-sector cooperation and promote the spirit of cooperation and solidarity in this context between cultural institutions. The partners of the conference are the Croatian State Archives, Croatian group of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC Croatian Group), Croatian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, Radiation Chemistry and Dosimetry Laboratory of the Ruđer Bošković Institute, Art and Restoration Department of the University of Dubrovnik and the Office of emergency management of the City of Zagreb, while the media sponsors are the Večernji list daily and Zaštita journal.
The conference programme will include the presentations of 14 invited speakers, prominent world experts in the field of the protection and preservation of material cultural heritage, who along with other speakers will present the results of their research in the field of heritage protection under the conditions of crisis and details of their professional experience.
In the context of its work on the preparation of a special charter for managing cultural heritage during crises and the development of specific guidelines for its protection in this context, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recently been emphasising the importance of including heritage protection in disaster risk management plans as a way of preventing irreversible losses of the world’s material cultural heritage. Pursuant to this, the conference programme will present the concepts of heritage protection from the perspective of safety policies and highlight the need for interoperability between the cultural and civil protection sectors. Managing cultural heritage, considered as an invaluable collection of diverse and unique national resources, necessarily implies an all-embracing protection strategy whose implementation includes the wider cultural and academic community, as well as institutional cooperation based on networking and the spirit of solidarity. Finally, including the wider public and developing a well-established network of volunteers also represents a very significant element in any efficient heritage protection strategy.
The conference programme will also focus on the role of cultural institutions in the development of the system for the management of material cultural heritage during crises. Other themes include systems and methods for the protection of library, museum and archival resources under the conditions of crisis, interoperability between the cultural and civil protection sectors, contribution that cultural institutions may make to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda and its sustainable development goals (SDGs), the integration of cultural heritage into national disaster risk reduction strategies, inclusion of citizens into educational programmes focusing on heritage protection, institutional solidarity in the cultural sector, fostering the culture of solidarity specifically in the context of the protection of heritage under the conditions of crisis, bringing together European and global cultural and safety policies in the context of heritage protection, and other relevant issues.
Learn more about the Conference.
