Connected Culture and Natural Heritage in the Northern Environment

Connected Culture and Natural Heritage in a Northern Environment (CINE) was a collaborative digital heritage project between 9 partners and 10 associated partners from Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland between 2017-2020.

 

  • NPA Project ID #87
  • Priority Axis 4: Natural and Cultural Heritage
  • Programme Specific Objective: Increased capacity of remote and sparsely populated communities for sustainable environmental management
  • Project Duration: 40 month (1 Sept 2017 - 31 Dec 2020), including a 4 month project extension due to covid19)
  • Total Budget: €1,999,709


CINE is now complete - a successful project with many lessons learned

After three and a half years our CINE project is complete. We are proud that we have achieved much more than planned — despite covId-19. In fact, CINE made a real difference to audiences in remote locations, especially during the pandemic. It was as if the partnership had prepared. Our models and tools were ready. We hosted many digital events which gained much attention and connected the closed museums to existing and new audiences.

CINE enabled the partnership to explore the concept of Museums Without Walls. The project took us outside into the landscape where we developed heritage mapping techniques, apps and games for the public and created future climate change scenarios to visualise the effects of the climate crisis. We interpreted and disseminated what we found in the landscape in innovative virtual models. Making the past and the future visible has a big impact on people as it provides an immediate understanding of a place and of the consequences of natural changes and human behaviour.

We can already see that the
 project is living on in new projects and configurations of our partnership. Also, digital technology is moving on rapidly. When CINE started, ‘digital’ and ‘heritage’ were two separate fields. Now, after three years, digital has become an integral part of the work in the cultural field. We might look back at CINE in some years and will probably laugh at the small steps we made. Our work will have become part of the professional mainstream. How nice that we were able to contribute to this development. Thank you, to our funders, our partners and all those who have shown an interest in our work.

 

How the project results contributed to the changes sought by the NPA 2014-2020

CINE transformed people’s experiences of outdoor heritage sites through technology, building on the idea of “museums without walls”. We have created toolkits that will help remote and sparsely populated areas to preserve and present their cultural and natural heritage in innovative ways. By enlightening and educating people about their heritage landscapes and natural landscapes, we minimise the risk of exploitation of natural resources by industry and tourism.

 

Connected North – Pre-Project

CINE is based on the digital heritage project Connected North, a transnational NPA pre-project which was delivered from 2015 - 2016. The four project partners, Timespan (Lead Partner), St Andrews University, Gunnarsstofnun and Museum Nord created a test toolkit of a remote, real-time communication service enabling smart, digital tourism in the cultural sector. Using the latest technology, this project aimed to connect isolated communities to share their heritage digitally via virtual realities.