Exhibitions as a way to promote intangible cultural heritage

Intangible cultural heritage is something that can be simple to translate into an exhibition. Exhibitions are a good way of showcasing and promoting non-physical things related to cultural heritage, such as:

• Practices
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Beliefs
• Traditions
• Customs
• Language
• And much more!

All of the aforementioned things can be reviewed by themselves or be connected and reviewed together with tangible cultural heritage elements.

Exhibitions, both virtual and physical, can be used as community-based approaches to both learn and to gather material about intangible cultural heritage. Exhibitions are an effective way of presenting many kinds of cultural material since there are near endless creative possibilities for their execution. To make the exhibition more engaging or thought-provoking, you can include interactive elements in the exhibition for a more comprehensive visitor experience. Virtual exhibitions are good approaches to topics like intangible cultural heritage since they are accessible and can be used to promote learning in diverse ways. 

The possibilities of virtual exhibitions

Virtual exhibitions overall broaden the accessibility of the exhibition, which in turn promotes understanding and appreciation of diverse cultural practices without any geographical barriers. Incorporating technology in some way is also important for both the preservation and documentation of intangible cultural heritage in the present day to strengthen and accompany the more traditional ways of preservation.

The exhibition building as a process done by using a community-based approach like in University of Eastern Finland’s pilot, is at its finest a transformative learning process that touches the workshop facilitators and participants and the visitors of the exhibition alike. See how the exhibition building process was done at Mujejärvi.

Starting points for building an exhibition and its virtual counterpart – Where to start?

Building an exhibition begins with gathering material, or if you have some already, reimagining it into an exhibition format. Exhibitions can realistically be built around pretty much anything, the essential things for starting to build an exhibition are a main topic, camera (or some material collected or made beforehand), and creativity! You can make the building of an exhibition a more community-based project by involving the people related to the aspect of intangible cultural heritage you want to teach and showcase through it.

When starting to build an exhibition (physical or virtual), think about the following questions, and discuss them with the group or participants you are working with:

• What is the topic or theme of the exhibition? Why is it important or meaningful?
• What different viewpoints to the theme or topic could be explored through the exhibition?
• What is the message or insight that you want to convey through the exhibition?
• What kind of materials could be used in the exhibition? Is it possible to use something that already exists, or do you want to gather new materials?
• Do you want to build a physical or virtual exhibition, or both? What kind of spaces and/or platforms could be utilized?
  • Art educator’s tip! If you are building a physical exhibition, usually it is best if you can confirm the exhibition space early in the process, as the place determines what kind of things can be included in the exhibition.
  • Art educator’s tip! If possible, utilize spaces that are important or meaningful for the participants and/or the community you are working with. Public and meeting spaces are also good to increase the exhibition's visibility in the community.
• What resources does the building of the exhibition need and what are everyone’s roles in the building process?
• Would it be possible to engage the exhibition visitors and make the exhibition more interactive? How?

Remember that even if it is good to discuss and agree some of these things with the participants, some things may change in the process and that is perfectly okay too! New ideas might pop up and some preliminary thoughts might become less important on the way as you are working with your ideas and materials, so allow yourselves to enter into the creative process with the uncertainty of not knowing everything for sure.

Creating a virtual exhibition using ThingLink