It’s been a full on week for us budding heritage practitioners! On Monday we submitted the last of three essays due over the last few weeks, for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage module. I think it’s safe to say we breathed a collective sigh of relief! On Tuesday afternoon, we were treated to a presentation from Siddharth Pandey on the challenges of protecting and promoting heritage in Shimla, a hill station of the British Raj in the Himalayas. It was fascinating to hear about the attitudes of the local population and authorities towards buildings constructed by imperialists during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the general opinion of Indians towards historic building conservation.
On Thursday half of the class presented our preliminary findings for our scenario analyses. This involves focusing on a site and thinking what it could look like in the future based on imagined scenarios. There were a wide variety of sites chosen – Rebecca presented on Grianan of Aileach in Donegal, Cate on the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Shitong on the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, Brijeshwari on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai, Ellen on Lijiang Ancient Town in Yunnan, and I spoke about the Tower of London. While it’s very much a work in progress, I think listening to how everyone else has approached their scenario analysis was a great way to help us develop our ideas for the write up. Some of us went for a delicious lunch at Zen restaurant after the seminar to celebrate submitting our coursework. Bring on round two of scenario analyses next Thursday!
Rebecca presenting on Grianan of Aileach
Shitong presenting on the War Childhood Museum
Rebecca, Cate and Laura ready for a Thai lunch!
Evie Stevenson
MA International Cultural Heritage Management, Durham University 