By Emily C. Arauz , PhD Candidate Dept. of Archaeology and History of Art, Graduate School of Social Sciences & Humanities Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey Upon exiting the San Martiño Pinario Monastery conference hall on the final day of the NEARCHing Factory , a fellow attendee made the cursory remark to myself and a colleague that this will go down in history as one of those conferences where, years hence, everyone will be asking one another: “Were you at the Nearching Factory in Santiago de Compostela, January 30 th – February 1 st , 2017?” Fortunately, I was one of the lucky 96 attendees who took part in this unique experience over the course of two and a half rainy and cold days in the Galicia region of Spain. The meeting, deemed a ‘factory’, was a public and interactive component of the NEARCH ( New ways of Engaging audiences, Activating societal relations and Renewing Practices in Cultural Heritage ) project [1] , organized in coordination with INCIPIT, C...

By Faidon Moudopoulos The 3rd IHC International Conference in Heritage Management (HerMa) took place in Elefsina, Attica, Greece, from the 30 th of September to the 2 nd of October. Organized by the Institute for Heritage Conservation , an NGO aiming to promote good practices in heritage management, the event was more than a conference, being part of the Aeschylea Festival , organized by the Municipality of Elefsina. The coexistence of the Festival with the conference combined with the fact that the city’s candidateship for European Cultural Capital of 2021 nomination was successful, transformed those three days to an inundation of diversified heritage practices. The old olive factory with the conference logo (credit: Sophia Zakoura) All those parameters provided a fertile ground for the development of the conference. Moreover, the broad topics covered by the various panels stimulated the interest of professionals in various disciplines and resulted to a diverse a...

I did not expect such a good weather in Berlin. With a full program from Thursday to Sunday, I had limited time to see Berlin, so right after checking in at the hotel I run out for a walk. I usually see politics everywhere, but Berlin was overwhelming; the struggle between Communism and Capitalism is still more than evident anywhere you look. Curry at the Wall, Berlin I wanted to open the post with this photo, because it is, in a way, a perfect introduction to my thoughts on the conference. You can only see the sausage and a bit of a balloon right where the wall was, not that long ago. Of course, Coca Cola is there and the bear holds victoriously his sausage as a trophy. Communism is over and we are all so happy about it that the new planning of the city embraced Capitalism in a way few cities have done.  Meanwhile, in Checkpoint Charlie, a couple of guys in army uniforms  take photos  with happy tourists that just entered the USA quarter. I cannot pay my publ...

Review of the II International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage: People and Communities (Mahón, April-May 2015) by Nekbet Corpas Cívicos Group photo of  the Conference  assistants  in the venue Some weeks after the 2nd International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage , it is time to take stock. This second edition, which focused on People and Communities, would not have been possible without substantial development in research and continuous effort. Excitement and accumulated experience were essential for the Complutense University of Madrid’s research team of which the Conference’s directors, Alicia Castillo and Ángeles Querol, are part. Once again, Menorca’s Council supported the event in its search for support to the Talayotic Menorca’s nomination to UNESCO World Heritage. The topic of this second edition, held in Mahon (Menorca, Balearic Islands) from the 29th of March to the 2nd of April 2015, perfectly ref...

By Chiara Zuanni (University of Manchester) Last month I had the opportunity to participate in the annual conference of the DGUF (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte e.V. – German Association for Pre- and Protohistory). This year’s theme focused on public archaeology and aimed to explore the possibilities and consequences of public involvement with the past. During the two days which comprised the academic programme, many different aspects of community archaeology, citizen science, and archaeological communication projects were explored. On Friday, Sylvia Crumbach unpacked the relationship between re-enactment groups and textile archaeologists: she argued that while both develop a great expertise in ancient clothing, it remains to be understood how museum reconstruction and images affect re-enactment costumes, and vice versa. The controversies raised by public approaches to archaeological work were highlighted in the afternoon, by two papers discussing metal detec...

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) hosted on 26-27 June 2014 an International Conference on Philanthropy in collaboration with the European Foundation Centre , with vivid discussions as to how the crippling unemployment rates among young people can be remedied by creating new opportunities (please see programme here ). I watched the session on Cultural Tourism because I was interested to see what suggestions the speakers would offer, since this was under the general theme of “Recharging the Youth: Youth Unemployment and Initiatives to Create New Opportunities for the Young”. Given the fact that the Ministry of Tourism as well as the general press have been presenting Cultural Tourism as a panacea for the current economic crisis because of its enormous undeveloped potential, any views offered on this are of great interest. But what one can hear and see in the short presentations is actually the concerned voices of a panel of archaeologists as experts on - why not? - cul...