In this inaugural volume of the Future Review of the University of Amsterdam’s Heritage and Memory class, the contributions, centred around the theme of ‘gaps’, raise various questions: what gaps do we see within the field of Heritage and Memory, what do these gaps reveal, and how can we situate this with an eye for the future? Rather than attending to Heritage as a static field of passive inheritance and pristine preservation, this year’s theme invites contributors to take a critical approach to dissect what is omitted, silenced, absent, and how these gaps have shaped heritage discourse. Authors have taken various approaches – letters, art, essays, and more – to not only convey the issues they see but to think through potentialities for the future. Many find hope and potential in the, often creative, possibilities for generating change and alternative ways of being in this complex and contested terrain.
Table of contents: “Thank God For Football”: Home Game (2024) and Identity. Reconciliation in Postmemory – Hruška // Mapping the unseen/reading palimpsestic Amsterdam – Maia // Beyond Preservation versus Transformation: The Deep Cities. Approach to Historic Cities – N // Mind the gap between the plinth and the future – M.T Gap // It’s not me, it is you – Brigitte M. // To Meet a Tree – tutto fa brodo // National identities in the age of digital reproduction: Tuvalu’s online retreat against the tides – Pier Luigi De Nero // A letter to my future self, Hopefully, a museum professional – Alt // Stories Stitched in Thread – August // For The Record –
S.D Axford.
PDF of the full Annual Review Report can be found here. To protect their identity, all contributors have used a pen-name. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments or drop us a line via the programme email address. Image by Arnaud Mesureur.