Creative Traditions and Cultural Projects: Re-thinking Heritage through Experience

Abstract

The article investigates the potential of project activities and project culture in creating novel conditions for introducing and re-thinking the complex nature of heritage, its transmission, practice, and new applications. Today, preindustrial knowledge, skill, and practice are interpreted rather as heritage that carries the potential of “creative traditions.” In modern societies, they can be incorporated in different fields—from educational programs for kids and adolescents to the tendency to integrate them into creative projects and cultural and creative industries. A key role in this process is played by ethnologists and anthropologists as researchers and interpreters of cultural heritage, but also as “cultural workers.” The paper is based on the case study of a project in the textile field, where elements of intangible cultural heritage were used and re-thought in the context of new forms of culture (ArtLabs for experimenting and innovation in textile art, a storytelling event, a festival, creative interpretations, and sensory and emotional experiences). Here we present and analyze a project that used an integrated approach to cultural heritage, carried out in 2019 in the city of Plovdiv, with the participation of ethnologists, anthropologists, artists, and students.