Using the experience, methodologies and tools developed through research in the VAST project, the partner Fairy Tale Museum in Cyprus created a handbook which assists in Conducting Effective Co-creation Activities/Workshops.

The booklet is addressed to anyone who wants to organise and implement an educational activity or a workshop for raising awareness, teaching, or enhancing skills, and is available in the link Conducting Effective Co-creation Activities/Workshops.

Through this initiative, VAST offers a step-by-step guide on how to plan, design, and implement high-quality, integrated and inclusive educational and co-creation activities or workshops adjusted to meet the needs of specific audiences and capture their experience.  Specifically, the guidelines include all the steps necessary to be followed prior to the activity (planning & preparation), during the activity (implementation), and after the activity (evaluation).

Partners NCSR Demokritos and Museo Galileo (IMSS) represented the VAST Project at the UNCHARTED central event: Tensions in Societal Values of Culture: Can Value Conflicts be managed or mitigated?  that took place between 12-13 January 2023 at the University of London.

During the interactive poster session of the event, partners’ representatives showcased the VAST poster, explaining the VAST objectives, the developed digital tools, and the way they can be used by stakeholders in the cultural heritage domain.

Additionally, during the event, our VAST representatives had the chance to attend presentations and participate in open dialogues on the
conceptual findings produced by the UNCHARTED Consortium, which interrogates contemporary tensions in the societal values of culture.

A few words about the event

The symposium Tensions in Societal Values of Culture comprises debates, provocations, and discussions interrogating the value conflicts and tensions that surround cultural production, consumption, and administration. This symposium explores how such conflicts can be managed or mitigated by cultural practitioners, administrators, and policymakers and builds upon the conceptual learnings of the UNCHARTED research consortium.

The second year of the VAST project was completed successfully with a very constructive plenary meeting held physically in Milan on 15 and 16 December 2022 at partner’s University of Milan premises.

During the meeting, partners presented the project’s progress and research results that emerged from the second year, as well as the roadmap for the project’s next steps for the achievement of objectives and exploitation plan.

Specifically, partners had the chance to work on the research of values through a scientific and analytical study of the historical and political base of values and to present the mapping results. Through workshops and hands on sessions where partners worked on the digitization of VAST activities, the data collected so far, the content of the VAST ontology, and the content expected to be collected until the end of the project.

Not all of it was work though! Partners also enjoyed the beautiful city of Milan in a social setting during the Christmas mood.

Aiming to raise awareness and investigate students’ perceptions about values, on 14 December 2022, VAST partner,  the University of Milan, organised an educational workshop addressed to university students during the preliminary session of the project’s plenary meeting, held between 14-16 December 2022 in Milan, IT.

The activity was based on an excerpt from Galileo’s letter to Christina of Lorraine, where the students were motivated to reflect on the values found in the excerpt, to interlink them, and through team working and dialogue to create their personal and group mind maps.

The educational workshop added valuable input to the VAST Project research.

After the first successful Focus Group with museum experts organised by the VAST Project in July 2022 in Lisbon and the valuable deriving feedback, on 14 December 2022, the VAST project arranged one more focus group with museums experts as a preliminary part of its Plenary Meeting held 15-16 December 2022, in Milan.

During the Focus Group, participants shared their experiences and points of view regarding the field of values communication, the role of museums, and the way audiences perceive it as well as relevant policy recommendations. Valuable input was collected and deployed in the brainstorming sessions and the workshops that followed during the Plenary Meeting.

The paper focuses on the performance/case study of Antigone by Sophocles at the Athens Epidaurus Festival in July 2022, which was commissioned for the VAST project, and presented the main research results on the communication and the reception of its values. Data collection followed a mixed-methods approach that combined qualitative and quantitative research methods, addressing theatre artists, as value communicators, through semi-structured interviews, and audiences, as recipients of the communicated messages and final co-authors of meaning, through questionnaires.

The paper also reflects on Antigone as a prominent case study in adaptation, in that it maintained the textual structure of the original, but, at the same time, updated its content by setting it in a modern political context resembling a western parliamentary democracy, and in a television studio displaying large screens and transmitting the action in real time. The paper thus discussed the concomitant associations of meaning concerning democratic values and the contemporary interpolation of political power and media power.

Dr. Marco Berni, manager of European and special projects at partner Museo Galileo, presented the VAST project at the CHARTER Alliance Tuscany Regional Workshop which was held in Florence, Italy on 1-2 December 2022.

More specifically, Dr. Berni participated in the round table discussion on the first day, which focused on cultural heritage, digital and green skills as well as on the needs, methods, and tools for innovation, education, jobs, and growth.

A workshop amongst experts was also realised which concluded with site visits to Museo Galileo, to Cantiere Scuola at Opera del Duomo di Firenze, and to CER – Centro Europeo del Restauro Scuola Edile di Firenze. During the visit to the Galileo Museum Dr. Berni presented a digitalised version of Fra Mauro’s world map with interactive features: https://mostre.museogalileo.it/framauro/en.

A few words about the CHARTER Alliance Tuscany Regional Workshop

The workshop was realised under the theme “Digital Innovation in Cultural Heritage: Skills Needs & Challenges” following the discussions held in Rome. The aim of the workshop was to provide the project with a snapshot of the Tuscan cultural heritage ecosystem and to bring together key stakeholders to start a reflection on the challenges and opportunities provided by the twin transition to the skills in cultural heritage.

On 28 November 2022, the research team of the University of Milan (UMIL) joining the VAST Project,  participated in the 1st Italian Workshop on AI for Cultural Heritage (AI4CH22) which was held in conjunction with the 21st International Conference of the Italian Association for AI (AIxIA 2022) at the University of Udine (Italy).

During the workshop, Dr. Stefano Montanelli, Dr. Alfio Ferrara, and Dr. Martin Ruskov presented the paper “Detecting the Semantic Shift of Values in Cultural Heritage Document Collections” and joined a fruitful, constructive discussion with the workshop participants.

A few words about the Workshop

The workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Cultural Heritage (AI4CH22) aims at bringing together researchers, policymakers, professionals, and practitioners to explore the main issues concerning the application of Artificial Intelligence to cultural heritage. In particular, it aims at fostering interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible cultural heritage, promoting the use of Artificial Intelligence models, methodologies, and tools for the study, research, preservation, and dissemination of cultural heritage content. At the same time, the workshop will encourage discussion on the ethical aspects and sustainability issues involved in the management, delivery, and conservation of cultural heritage, with a specific focus on the involvement of all kinds of stakeholders so as to represent the different perspectives and communities involved in cultural heritage practices.

You can find more info about the Workshop in the link:https://ai4ch.di.unito.it