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Conservation and Heritage As Creative Processes of Future-Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2020

Cornelius Holtorf
Cornelius Holtorf*
Affiliation:
Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden; Email: cornelius.holtorf@lnu.se
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Abstract

According to the logic of the conservation ethics, the heritage sector has the duty to conserve cultural heritage because it has inherent value and constitutes a non-renewable resource that once destroyed cannot be substituted and, therefore, must be preserved for the benefit of future generations. In this article, I argue, however, that the cultural heritage of the past is not a comprehensive legacy that theoretically, at any point, might have been considered complete but, rather, that it can be understood as frequently updated manifestations of changing perceptions of the past over time. The most important question for conservation and heritage management, thus, is not how much heritage of any one period may or may not survive intact into the future but, instead, which heritage, as our legacy to the generations to come, will benefit future societies the most. In particular, I am calling for more research into the possible significance of heritage in addressing some of the social consequences of climate change.

Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 27 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue: Authenticity and Reconstruction , May 2020 , pp. 277 - 290
Copyright
© International Cultural Property Society 2020

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Footnotes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: My argument has benefited in many ways from the frank and constructive discussions among all of the participants of the pilot workshop of the ICOMOS University Forum on a Contemporary Provocation: Reconstructions as Tools of Future-Making, which was held on 13–15 March 2017 in Paris and for which a first draft of this text was written. My thinking has also been inspired by the discussions within our AHRC-funded “Heritage Futures” Research Programme 2015–19 (http://www.heritage-futures.org), which was led by Rodney Harrison. Part of the discussion was contained in Holtorf 2016.

References

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