Art, Anthropology, and Contested Heritages

Abstract

This book is an outcome of a three-year research project called TRACES that was funded in 2016 by the European Commission, as part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The project set out to investigate challenges and possibilities of transmitting contentious pasts to public audiences and the role cultural contentious heritage plays in contemporary Europe. One of the project’s aims, while transmitting contentious cultural heritage to public(s), was to involve modes of creative co-production (CCP) within research practices. Researchers contributing to the volume propose that, by changing research practices, potentials exist to instigate a process of reflexive Europeanization, whereby the European imagination is shaped by self-awareness, ongoing critical reflection, and dialogs across a multiplicity of methodological positions. This research project brought together a multidisciplinary team of artists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and architects to investigate contentious cultural heritages through collaboration and experimentation. Contentious cultural heritage studies have gained momentum in recent years. A key figure responsible for shaping and influencing these studies is the anthropologist Sharon Macdonald. Her research considers heritage as a relational process whereby memory, multiple identities and history are not fixed in time; but rather past, present, and future become interwoven through shifting social relations and multitemporal practices (Macdonald 2013, 2021). Underpinning TRACES researchers’ inquiry is the concept of CCP. CCP in the TRACES project required a diversity of research partners to work on specific cases of contentious heritage toward providing participatory public interfaces. Theoretical inquiry and artistic practice-based investigations aim to open lines of inquiry for cultural institutions and museums to engage with contentious cultural heritage and find a means to inform future formation of European identities. Research methodologies were deployed analyzing challenges, opportunities, and practices inherent in transmitting difficult pasts and heritages to different audiences. The edited volume is the result of collaborative efforts of many research partners in the TRACES network, which comprises universities, museums, independent research organizations, and NGOs working in various locations across Europe. The volume has 13 chapters presenting research done by CCPs in Romania, Poland, Slovenia, Austria,