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InTaVia 3rd Newsletter

Nearing the end of the InTaVia project – still on a mission to smash the silos!

As the INTAVIA: In/Tangible European Heritage – Visual Analysis, Curation & Communication project draws to a close in October 2023, we reflect on how much has already been achieved: take a quick look at the list of deliverables, which specify the progress of project activities carried out in specific work packages.

One of the project deliverables is the final conference, which was supposed to take place in the last few months of the project. However, the project team has decided to be even more ambitious: instead of one conference, we will organise two, i.e. the Smashing the Silos! conference to be held in Graz on 9 July 2023 and the There's History in All Men's Lives conference to be held in Ljubljana on 25-26 September 2023.

The one-day symposium Smashing the Silos! aims to reflect on new developments and challenges in the field of cultural heritage information and will take place on 9 July as a co-located event with DH 2023 at Kunsthaus Graz. It will address key conceptual and technological research and development challenges, including how to visualise interrelated, heterogeneous, uncertain, multimodal or narrative aspects of cultural heritage information for different types of users. We expect that future work on these challenges depends on stronger transdisciplinary collaborations for data, concept and technology development, and on efforts to consolidate related research and discourse environments. For that matter, an illustrious line-up of scholars will share their assessments of current and future developments with attendees on site and on Zoom – the registration is free!

Since 2020, InTaVia has been working on the transnational linking and harmonisation of cultural heritage data collections (both tangible and intangible aspects of CH information) and on making these complex collections accessible and visible to a wide range of audiences. Starting from a reflection on the main questions and results of the project, the symposium aims to broaden, deepen and contextualise the impulse of this European initiative with cutting-edge contributions from digital humanists, visualisation scholars and GLAM practitioners. With these experts we want to discuss open challenges for the research field and reflect on future means to build new bridges:

  • How do we address the pervasive challenges of heterogeneity and uncertainty in CH data?
  • How do we reconcile a plurality of visualisation perspectives (e.g. on geographic, relational, taxonomic or chronological aspects of CH) and work on different CH focus entities (e.g. on cultural objects and cultural actors, as well as on larger collections thereof)?
  • How do we support the retrieval, creation and curation of CH information through visual means?
  • How do we combine exploratory and explanatory or narrative modes of CH visualisation?
  • How do we foster stronger collaborations between communities of VIS4DH and DH or CH practice?

The detailed programme of the symposium is available on the project website – but feel free to explore the whole intavia.eu website as well – and stay tuned for information about the September conference in Ljubljana, which will follow in one of the next Newsletter issues!