Contentious Cultural Heritages and Arts

The volume “Contentious Cultural Heritages and Arts – A Critical Companion” introduces new approaches to productively address contentious heritages. It demonstrates how to use artistic methods in combination with educational, anthropological and historical approaches. Thirty authors with backgrounds in academia, museums and the art world discuss strategies and practices to publicly represent controversial heritages in Europe. Outlining artistic and participatory methods, they open up spaces where difference and conflict can be negotiated in productive ways. This approach fosters constructive exchanges in a political landscape where heritage is increasingly deployed to normalise divisive ideologies of the extreme right.

The carefully designed volume is richly illustrated. It combines critical analyses with experiences, reflections and interviews from Austria, Canada, Germany, Northern Ireland, Norway, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These are based on a 3-year research process in the EU-funded project “TRACES – Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritage with the Arts: From Intervention to Co-Production” 2016-2019.

The volume addresses heritage practitioners, artists, educators and academics, but is also of interest for the wider public. It offers inspiration for transdisciplinary work in museums, archives, memorial sites, universities and civil society. Overall, it makes a substantial contribution to the debates on the challenges Europe is facing.