Call for Participation

The second Heritage Dot conference ‘HDot 2.0: Ambition, Access & Added Value’ will take place online on 22nd March 2023.

Please note: the call for participation is now closed.

Heritage Dot explores the exciting collision between the worlds of digital tools and technology and cultural heritage. This fusion creates new relationships between past and future, tradition, and innovation. It enables new audiences to reinterpret the past and technologies of the future to reimagine professional practice. At the same time, its continually evolving nature can be a confusing space, placing demands on people and organisations within a changing landscape in terms of access to resources.

We invite practitioners, professionals, researchers and anyone with an interest in digital cultural heritage to present your work – which may be a completed project or one in progress – to Heritage Dot. Participants are encouraged to contribute in a range of formats for presentation online, including talks, interactive displays, papers, demonstrations, panels, posters, workshops or boot camps. All can be accommodated within the conference programme.

Submissions are especially sought that investigate or relate to the main conference theme ‘Ambition, Access & Added Value’ or the suggested topics listed below, but we also welcome proposals that explore other aspects of digital cultural heritage. We are particularly interested in proposals that:

Ambition

• Explore where ambition lies within the field of digital heritage and how this has been affected by the shifts in cultural heritage consequent to the pandemic; what does ambition look like from grass roots to global leaders?
• Highlight innovations and innovative projects that have emerged during an enhanced period of digital engagement; how have projects creatively responded to the challenges of the past year?
• Seek to understand how public and/or research funding supports/has supported innovation and ambition in digital heritage projects
• Engage with sustainability agendas and ambitions to integrate climate change management into digital heritage practice

Access

• Share experiences and identify opportunities to develop confidence, skills and expertise that leads to greater access for audiences and participants in digital heritage contexts
• Evaluate inclusivity and diversity in the context of digital cultural heritage: what’s changed over the past year? What still needs to happen?
• Define audiences/participants in a post-pandemic world; has our understanding of hard-to-reach and isolated audiences changed? How have initiatives responded to digital isolation and/or digital empowerment?
• Share experiences of volunteering within digital heritage; who participates? How do they need to be supported? What possibilities are offered by remote access or micro opportunities?
• Explore the excellence and/or durability of technology; what systems/programmes/apps offer longevity or sustainability? How is digital innovation embedded over the longer term?

Added Value

• Showcase exemplars of how to increase engagement with heritage through digital solutions
• Offer insights into how digital heritage can be embedded at sites/in face to face contexts and online; how does/should the offer differ?
• Examine questions around copyright and access, subscriptions and open source, sustainability and innovation
• Consider the ways in which digital heritage emerges through informal networks; what relationship does this have to social media? How does this inform/influence digital heritage practitioners/researchers?
• Demonstrate learning around the use of big data in relation to heritage

Heritage Dot takes a broad view of cultural heritage, from landscapes and the built environment to individual sites and collections across different media, including virtual representations. It encompasses intangible and tangible cultural heritage whether held by galleries, libraries, archives, museums or elsewhere.

Pre-constituted panels of up to three participants are welcomed. We anticipate that individual participants will be allocated a 15-minute slot.

The deadline for submission of proposals was 22^nd January 2023.

• Register your interest to receive updates and news here
• Book your place here.
• Questions? Contact us.

Heritage Dot is an international conference focusing on digital cultural heritage and developed by the University of Lincoln. It is jointly hosted by the Centre for Culture & Creativity at the University of Lincoln and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and is supported by a number of heritage sector and academic partners.