Let the ancient heritage adapt into modern life

Let the ancient heritage adapt
into modern life
IHPE 2017
How to promote tangible and intangible ancient heritage
The past relives in the present!
Italian case histories
Barbara Landi, Italy
Communication manager

into modern life IHPE 2017
AGENDA
The past relives in the present! 
Barbara Landi, Italy 
✴ Introduction
✴ Preserve and promote
✴ How to make the past relive in the present?
✴ Italian case histories
✴ Q&A

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes
of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in
the present and bestowed for the beneﬁt of future generations.
UNESCO
PRESERVE PROMOTE

PRESERVE
• Multidisciplinary know-how
Archaeology, history of art, architecture,
materials science, conservation studies, engineering,
computer science, chemistry, and much more…
• Research
• Technology
• Innovation
Tangible heritage…
… includes buildings and historic places,
monuments, artefacts, etc., which are
considered worthy of preservation for the
future. These include objects signiﬁcant to
the archaeology, architecture, science or
technology of a speciﬁc culture.
Intangible heritage…
… includes traditions or living expressions
inherited from our ancestors and passed
on to our descendants, such as oral
traditions, performing arts, social
practices, rituals, festive events,
knowledge and practices concerning
nature and the universe or the knowledge
and skills to produce traditional crafts.
UNESCO

PRESERVE PROMOTE
Promote the cultural heritage doesn’t mean to lose control
on its protection!
It is necessary to work side-by-side with all the professionals, the expertise and the
resources involved in the cultural preservation and management, always keeping in
mind the past, the present and the future...

How to make the past relive in the present?
We can make the past
become part of our future…
• By understanding (cultural heritage) 
—> people value it
• By valuing it
—> people want to care for it
• By caring for it
—> it will help people enjoy it
• From enjoying it
—> comes a thirst to understand
and again…
• By understanding it...
2005, Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage
Source: http://www.cultureindevelopment.nl/Cultural_Heritage/What_is_Cultural_Heritage

How to get attention
The pace of modern life
is faster and faster!
The frantic of modern life can
dramatically lower our level of
attention on what is around us.
People in this picture are passing
close to one of the most famous
monument in the world, the
Coliseum in Rome.
Are they noticing it?
Enjoying it?

Our brains are busier
than ever before
During the past decades the
demands on attention have exploded:
our minds are constantly under the
pressure of a higher number of
solicitations.
Trying to ﬁgure out what we can
ignore and what we need to know, we
would like to know, to care, to
enjoy…
…is exhausting!
Daniel J Levitan, Professor of psychology and behavioural neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/18/modern-world-bad-for-brain-daniel-j-levitin-organized-mind-information-overload#img-3

Start from the past. Analyze the present.
The ancient heritage can suffocate in the modern life, can be overwhelmed by the frantic of modern life,
can pass unnoticed if not able to adapt into modern life. We need to look at the past to understand the
value of our heritage and analyze the present in order to be able to let its value reach our audience with
new languages, today and in the future.

How to create a new experience?
ITALIAN CASE HISTORIES

BRIXIA. THE ARCHEOLOGICAL AREA OF ROMAN BRESCIA
CASE HISTORY

Brixia. The archeological area of Roman Brescia
Brescia - ancient Roman name, Brixia - is a city
in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy.
It is considered the industrial capital of Italy
and its province is among the 10 richer
industrial areas in Europe.
The old town has a signiﬁcant artistic and
archaeological heritage, consisting of various
monuments ranging from the ancient age to
contemporary.

The monumental archaeological area of the Roman forum and
the monastic complex of San Salvatore-Santa Giulia have
become a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a group
of seven inscribed as Longobards in Italy, Places of Power.
The archeological area of Capitolium*, recently restored
within an extensive project to preserve its beauty through
time, still bears the monumental remains of the core of
ancient Brixia.
Visitors can see an uninterrupted series of ancient buildings,
including the Roman theatre and some noble palaces from
Medieval and Renaissance times.
* The Capitolium was the main temple of each Roman city and was the perfect symbol
of ancient Roman culture

How to create a new experience
The restoration of the area - project completed in 2013 - has
also concerned the area of marketing and communication.
Visitor communication tools have been adapted under the
inspiration of new and more effective languages and of the
design for all philosophy, which prescribes improved physical
accessibility of information contents.
An extensive use of 3D video has been made, in particular
by experimenting the ﬁrst application of AR - Augmented
Reality - to an archaeological site in Italy (Brixia Time
Machine).
www.art-glass.it

Brixia Time Machine won AVICOM’s  
Golden Prize at F@IMP 2.0 in Novembre
2016
The Brixia Time Machine project has been awarded
the Golden Prize for Interactive Media at F@IMP
2.0 (Festival of Audiovisual International Multimedia
Patrimony) organized by AVICOM, the International
Committee for audiovisual and new technologies for image
and sound of ICOM, International Council of Museums.
www.bresciamusei.com

THE CASTLE OF BRESCIA: A NEW WAY OF LIVING IT
CASE HISTORY

The Castle of Brescia
The Castle is one of the most interesting and one of the largest
fortiﬁed complexes in Italy, with 75,000 square meters enclosed
within its surrounding walls. Signs of the various periods of
domination are still evident.
The Castle and its hill have always been an integral part of the city
and going 'up to the Castle' is part of the (modern) life of Brescian
people, meaning not only visiting the massive fortiﬁcations of the
stronghold, but also strolling in the spacious gardens within the
walls and enjoy the view of the city.
That is possible thank to
a constant care and an accurate preservation!

The Castle of Brescia
Inside the Castle of Brescia, two museums are hosted:
Luigi Marzoli Arms Museum
It is one of the most important of its kind in Europe because of the wealth
of XV and XVI arms and armors and XVII and XVIII guns in its collections.
Museum of the Risorgimento* - now closed for refurbishment
Housed in the Grande Miglio (corn store), this museum has many
interesting objects on display: documents, pictures, period prints, and
historic relics related to the most important ﬁgures and happenings of
the period ranging from the revolutionary years at the end of the XVIII
century to the late XIX century.
* Risorgimento: was the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian
peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century

How to create a new experience
In summer 2017 Fondazione Brescia Musei (FBM) - which is in
charge of the management of the Castle and its museums -
launched a new project: an open-air cinema in the garden
area of the Castle.
The project - called “The garden of Eden” - brought in the
Castle a very high-quality programming of 39 films selected
by “Nuovo Eden” cinema (part of FBM too).
Almost each day, before or after the film projection, a cultural
activity - related to the film itself - was proposed to the public.
Furthermore the cinema set-up was made by an Italian artist,
allowing people to enjoy the films in an artistic environment.

Discover the arms used in the film!
Before the projection of Mel Gibson’s movie “Haksaw
Ridge” (based on a true story of WWII), a special visit to the
“Luigi Marzoli Arms Museum” was proposed to the public.
Museum’s curator - Mr Marco Merlo - guided the visitors into
discovering original pieces of the weapons actually used
in the film, bringing guns and rifles out of the shelves and
allowing people to have a close look at them and even to
touch them, in a perfectly safe environment for the visitors
and for the arms (as they are not so ancient!).
People enjoyed the visit and got to know more about the
Museum, talking about it and sharing a positive feedback on
the experience with friends, on social network, etc.

A SPECIAL PROJECT FOR THE PRE-SCHOOL AGE
CASE HISTORY

Project: “Nati con la cultura”
Over recent years, medicine and the health care world have begun to
understand the importance of the humanities disciplines (ﬁne arts,
history, philosophy etc.) as new tools to “create health”, as
innovative ways to cure patients, and even to rewrite the ground rules of
clinical practice as a whole.
Many hospitals and clinics already promote actions and projects in order
to improve the environment, integrating art into the everyday spaces
used by patients to support and enhance hospital care.
Furthermore, it has been known - Pierre Bourdieu, 1969, L’amour de l'art.
Les Musées Européens d'art et leur publique) - that familiarity with the
museum environments in early childhood is an essential factor in the
later use of cultural services in adulthood.
www.naticonlacultura.it

The project “Nati con la cultura” - born in Turin, Italy, in 2009 - starts
out from the principle that art may serve as a powerful source of
wellbeing, regeneration and creative strengthening for all human
beings, right from infancy, and may play a decisive role in the
development of their personality, according to the assertions of
interactionist psychologists.
The name “Nati con la cultura” - which means “Born with culture” -
has a special ﬂavor, as it reminds of the Italian way of saying “Nato
con la camicia”, which literally means “Born with the shirt”, but
which is commonly used to say that a baby is “born with luck”.
Being born with culture means being born with luck…

The project tries to give an answer to the following questions:
1. How is it possible to bring together the world of young families
with that of the museum?
2. In what way may parenthood be associated with an educational
opportunity that may offer potential for children’s future lives?
3. How should the museum and the world of healthcare support
parental responsibilities?
How can we
let the ancient heritage adapt
into modern.. families?

A museum project for the 0-3 age range designed to accompany the parental role.
At the moment of discharge from the Hospital,
to each newborn child will be given a Cultural Passport.
During the ﬁrst year of the child’s life, the kid and the parents are welcome
to visit one ore more museums free of charge and whenever they like!
The passport will be the ﬁrst step in establishing a bond of affection and familiarity
with the cultural institution, leading to its being perceived as a common point of
reference that may contribute to the wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole.
The Turin experience
Palazzo Madama, Fondazione Torino Musei

The project started out from Turin, but it aim is to spread across the world!
Italian cities which already adopted the project:
• Rivoli (Torino): with its Caste and the
Museum of Contemporary Art
• Pavia: with the “Musei Civici” (museums of
the city) and the University Museums
• Reggio Emilia: with the “Musei civici” 
(museums of the city) and the libraries
• Brescia: with Fondazione Brescia Musei
• Napoli: with “MADRE” Museum of
Contemporary Art

… and when the kid go to school?
It is important to engage audiences in a non formal learning setting
School’s programs change and the teachers need daily
and up-to-date sustain and guidance from the cultural
institutions, in accordance with the administrative
authorities responsible for each grade level (city, region,
etc.) and those governing the museums (municipal
museums, national museums, etc.).
How can we
let the ancient heritage adapt
into modern.. schools?

Museums CAN be boring for children (and sometimes for adults too).
Objects ARE boring if we don’t tell the audience their stories.
Experiment new ways to involve the audiences.
An ancient monastery can come back to life,
thanks to an educator/actor who will impersonate an
old nun and tell the kids (and the adults) the real
and yet curios stories of that place…
An ancient Roman garden (we could say: a few ancient stones and some grass) can
become a world to be discovered, if we plant there some aromatic plants and we let the
children know them and use them, for their perfume, for their good ﬂavor in cooking a good
dish old more than 2000 years, for their healing properties e.g. just for smelling them…

Cooperate with others.
The diocesan Museum in Brescia has a very rich
collection of ancient liturgical fabrics, which are of
an exquisite quality.
How can we make them interesting for children?
The “MUSIL – Museum of Industry and Labour” of Brescia is dedicated to industrialisation
as a phenomenon which has an impact on the society as a whole and displays a wide
range of objects: machines, pictures, documents, etc.
How can we create a suggestive experience for the various school levels?
+

Cooperate with others.
An answer to both questions are
the combined visits and educational activities
which involve both Museums
First children visit the diocesan Museum, see the fabrics,
learn their history and their “stories”. Then they go to
the MUSIL where they have the opportunity to
experiment how to create unique products by working
with their hands and their creativity, using the stencil
and batik technique on cotton napkins. Children create a
unique artisanal item as a reminder of a pleasant creative
and playful experience lived together in a fascinating
space.
web.diocesi.brescia.it/museodiocesano/ - www.musilbrescia.it
Project by Emanuele Luca

Let’s mix up!
Let an archaeologist work with a botanist,
let an educator work with a screenwriter,
let two different museums work together and create a unique offer,
more interesting than the single ones,
let those strange people who deal with communication, work with you all
and
let us all together make the ancient heritage adapt into modern life!

Q&A

CONTACTS AND INFORMATION
Barbara Landi, Italy
Education
Master and degree in Sciences of Communication
Recent roles
Communication, Marketing and Fundraising manager
Fondazione Brescia Musei, Brescia
Italian project manager
24th ICOM General Conference, Milan
ICOM member
CONTACTS
Email: barbaralandi76@gmail.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/barbaralandi

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