AHM Conference 2024: 'Heritage, Memory and Material Culture'

This contribution outlines how successive research projects have contributed to the national digital research infrastructure supporting Open Science and FAIR use of oral history focused on artworks and their care. These projects have enabled a research collaboration of the University of Amsterdam with DANS-KNAW, the Foundation for Open Speech Technology, the National Institute for Sound & Vision (NISV), SURF, the University of Twente and many Dutch art museums. In addition to the interviews with artists and conservators that have been made available over the past years, the OH-SMArt Deposit Application for Oral History at DANS-KNAW is in use. Moreover, a collaborative virtual research environment to prepare the material with automatic speech recognition and correction software is planned to be integrated in SURF Research Cloud, linking SURF Research Drive and DANS-KNAW repository services for FAIR use for a more efficient workflow. Finally, the OH-SMArt Reflexivity Tool is being developed for CLARIAH’s Media Suite, hosted by NISV, to record users’ interpretations of the source materials revealing different perspectives, with the aim to improve research quality when using archived oral history data for research and conservation decision making, for example. Overall, the projects succeeded in building a fruitful network for the advancement of FAIR digital archiving in humanities research. Not only has a sound deposit pipeline been established to significantly facilitate archiving and publishing of oral history data, but more fundamental issues have also been identified in the collaboration between different disciplinary cultures that require further attention. These include different conceptions of FAIR data management when dealing with audiovisual interview materials about art and museum practice, and wider access to the national research infrastructure by museums and cultural heritage institutions, calling for continued research.

A central assumption in the political process of restitution of looted properties and cultural objects is that their return helps societies to redeem histories of injustice and dispossession. In this article, we ask which objects address whose histories, and how processes of restitution are influenced by the presence and absence of objects and collections. Looting leads to more than material loss. While most attention nowadays goes to objects classified as ‘ethnographic’, historic, and cultural artefacts, loss in a colonial context also included the remains of ancestors, manuscripts, archives, commercial wares, mineralogical samples, as well as land and livelihoods. The Holocaust almost entirely wiped out the rich abundance and variegated landscape of Jewish life in Europe along with its diverse material cultures. If we want to address these larger histories of loss, we should shift our focus from what is left in present-day museum collections to what was lost. The phrase ‘what was lost’ is productive in three ways. Firstly, by focusing on ‘what was lost’ we can address the impact of loss beyond the material, also creating space for the significance of objects for fundamental human values. Secondly, the phrase necessarily provokes the question ‘what’s lost for whom’, thereby invoking a social provenance research approach. Finally, by asking ‘what was lost’ we can also address the experience and feelings of loss – expressed through objects and restitution claims – and how they evolved over time.

Collective memories form important mental frameworks within which people position themselves and subsequently act. This means that memory studies can tell us a great deal about the world we live in, also in the most literal sense: since shared memories are an indispensable element of the nation as an 'imagined community', to use Benedict Anderson's famous description, they can also have an impact on international relations. This paper explores the generally underestimated relationship between discourses of memory, the politics of memory and geopolitics.

This paper presents a research description containing urgent questions and discussions in the field of global book history. It rethinks the crucial impact of new printed media on the early modern European encounter with Asia, and perceptions of these encounters. It proposes to do so through an interdisciplinary study taking on the entangled histories of the burgeoning of print culture and the introduction of Chinese medicine. On one level, this project pioneers the comprehensive study of print culture's influence on the formation and dissemination of non-European medical information, by postulating that early modern print culture was as an engine of change, conveying and altering ideas of Chinese medicine during a period of exceptional transformation and increased global trade, travel, and proselytising, in which the producers of print played a fundamental role. On another level, the project theoretically and methodologically integrates scientific analyses of form and content across and between global cultures, thus charting the process of knowledge transfer in a comprehensive manner and expanding research horizons across fields in historical studies, synthesising perspectives and methods from book history, global history and the history of medicine and science.

This paper aims to outline future collaborations between material culture researchers and museums in women's clothing and silk textiles in early modern Europe. Case studies from Venetian colonies in the Mediterranean and the Dutch Republic will be used to address the question of the comparability of materials in seventeenth-century garments that have either survived or have been extensively described in archival documents (inventories). Examples like De Jurk (exhibited in Texel Kaap Skil Museum) and the ‘Venetocretan Silk Gown’ (still being 'locked' in the marriage inventories of Venetian Crete) will set the stage for a discussion around questions relevant to the fields of cultural heritage and material culture. For example: how do we make hidden fragments of cultural heritage, such as the ‘Venetocretan Silk Gown’, visible? How do we deal with the gaps in archival documents or fragmentary archaeological finds? How do we give women a voice through the study of their clothing? How do we make similar cases of seventeenth-century European dress comparable? Ultimately, solving the puzzle of female dress and gender in early modern Europe is necessary if we wish to explore what kind of stories can be told about the seventeenth century when we focus on the perceptions of women from different social backgrounds.

Fashion and textile practice transitioned over the past decade from a physically engaged design practice into a screen-based design practice with textiles simulated on digital bodies. Digital designers use tangible interaction with textiles for post-phenomenological design considerations. Our research indicates a complementary relationship between tangible interaction and drape observation, which allows for new approaches when considering textile materials. The drape observation based on drape measurement methods developed in textile science equips designers with a deeper material understanding. As the flat textile is placed in the scientific setup, the deformation and the designer's experience co-shape design considerations. The physical-to-digital paradigm shift disconnects designers from the tangible interaction with the textile. Fashion designers' approach contrasts with textile science methods to measure textile properties (needed to simulate textiles) and drape. Equipping designers with this understanding of textile technology requires interdisciplinary developments to make combined tangible drape tools accessible in physical and digital design spaces. Understanding design considerations in physical-digital practices and material drape, utilizing simulated textile properties, is essential for this endeavor. Cross-disciplinary understanding of textiles and similar soft materials between fashion designers, design researchers, textile and computer researchers, and cultural heritage researchers seems valuable in reducing measurement hurdles and creating tools to increase relationships between the physical and digital textiles and improving visual analyses and assessment of textiles. Our reflection to sharpen the post-phenomenological lens and cross-disciplinary collaborations of our past and future research contributes to understanding physical-digital textile design considerations and required cross-disciplinary interaction.

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) as a learning environment for higher education has seen steady growth in the last decade. Besides a larger number of users, the body of research into the effectiveness of VR in higher education contexts has also grown considerably. However, recent meta-reviews reveal a lack of studies on the use of VR in the humanities. Furthermore, the potential beneficial affordances to support learning processes have been barely explored. In 2022, the Virtual Past Places (VPP) project was launched, in which VR learning environments were developed, implemented, and evaluated in the context of various courses within the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. As such, it offers the possibility to assess potential learning benefits using a large collected empirical dataset based on carefully embedded VR learning environments in Humanities education. In this paper, we discuss the underlying concepts, the project aims, the design process involving co-creation, and the evaluation setup. Finally, we discuss an example VR implementation and provide an outlook towards preliminary evaluation results.

Modern digital cameras can capture the materiality of an object to a great level of detail, making photography an increasingly useful tool in the field of cultural heritage. Despite the broad availability of digital cameras, performing high-quality photography is still typically connected to the usage of costly equipment, which is not accessible to many institutions. In this article we highlight the need for accessible solutions for high-quality cultural heritage photography and—without going into the technical details—present our efforts to fill this gap.

The shockingly frequent occurrence of mass graves resulting from conflict and mass violence comprises a significant humanitarian and social crisis. In addition to serving as tangible evidence of deep trauma, large-scale criminal acts and violation of human rights, mass graves pose complex and challenging archaeological contexts for investigation. The large numbers of deceased individuals and personal effects found within these graves require specialized forensic archaeological excavation techniques and meticulous documentation methods to safeguard evidence of crimes committed. However, mass graves as archaeological contexts are still poorly understood, with uncertainties surrounding the preservation of remains and the recovery of important evidence. These knowledge gaps affect the identification, documentation and recovery of victims found in mass graves. The Mass Grave Project is an interdisciplinary experiment simulating clandestine mass and single graves at the outdoor forensic research facility managed by the Forensic Anthropology Center, Texas State University. By enhancing scientific understanding of mass graves as complex and dynamic archaeological contexts, the project seeks to advance the field of forensic archaeology. Specifically, the project aims to advance methods of detection, 3D documentation, and excavation of mass graves, as well as the identification and time-since-death estimation of the deceased individuals within them. Furthermore, the project seeks to provide training opportunities for students and practitioners in excavation and recording techniques, both through fieldwork and the development of innovative 3D Virtual Reality training tools. Improving scientific understanding of mass graves ensures the preservation of vital evidence of historical events and tragedies. Besides immediate importance for criminal prosecution and humanitarian purposes, such evidence is essential to the development of memorialization practices at conflict sites. Furthermore, improved identification and time-since-death estimation contribute to peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts by providing accurate data on victims of conflict.