the best in heritage 2018

 

The 17th edition of the event took place in Dubrovnik 26-28 September and gathered a wide scope of heritage professionals - 165 coming from 31 countries and various geographical and working environments. 

 

CONFERENCE LIKE NO OTHER

The Best in Heritage is a specific conference. It selects the best, awarded projects from the heritage sector in the preceding year and does so on the global level. It therefore offers unique panorama of quality achievements. Forty-one laureates awarded in 2017 were featured in a packed, three-day programme, representing almost all aspects of best and, indeed, awarded, practices from some 50 prestigious award schemes and their juries. The presenters came from 32 countries. Since the beginning in 2002, the strategy was simple: same time, same place, one-track conference with an intimate atmosphere and imperceptible organization.

 

PROJECTS OF INFLUENCE

To further affirm the excellence of featured projects, we designed our own recognition for the projects that made the best impact on the international professional audience. Therefore, our moderators, the last year's winners and the audience (all acting as a Jury), cast their votes to choose one project (in each of the two sessions) as the Project of Influence for the current year. The implied claim is that such projects have a potential to produce change and advance professional practices by their power of inspiration.  

 

In IMAGINES part of the programme (dedicated to projects in multimedia and new technologies), our collective jury has chosen the Lost Palace project Historic Royal Palaces, from United Kingdom - presented by Tim Powell, to be the “IMAGINES Project of Influence” for the year 2018. This project was followed by ArtLens Studio by Cleveland Museum of Art - presented by Jane Alexander; and by Stockholmskaallan from Sweden - presented by Martin Nyblom.

 

The core programme featured 27 out of 28 announced projects out of which the title of “Project of Influence 2018” went to TextielMuseum from Tilburg, The Netherlands – presented by Errol Van de Werdt. The second place was taken by the Northern Norway Art Museum from Tromsø- presented by Jeremie Michael McGowan, and the third by Fort Edmonton Park, Canada  - presented by Darren Dalgleish.

 

Both awards are recognition of excellence and professionalism proposed by an ambitious international professional public. The two Projects of Influence award winners will be the part of our ongoing effort to present the excellence in profession and that of the conference.  We present “The Best in Heritage” biannually at “Exponatec” (Koelnmesse, Cologne) and at the Chinese Association's Museum Fair –“MPT-Expo”. Our winners are invited to join by presenting their achievements at a prestigious stand and the programme we arrange for the occasion. Altogether four projects from 2017 and 2018 will be featured at MPT Expo in Fuzhou 23-26 November 2018, and from 2018 and 2019 editions at Exponatec, Cologne from 22-24 November 2019. 

 

To assure continuity and insight, the presenters of the winning projects are offered to serve as the key-note speakers at the next conference edition. 

 

PARTNERSHIPS

The conference was organized in partnership with Europa Nostra (with support by Creative Europe programme) and International Council of Museums (ICOM). The invaluable support comes regularly from the City of Dubrovnik and Dubrovnik Museums. The enchanting atmosphere of UNESCO world heritage site is a happy circumstance. The IMAGINES event is sponsored by Meyvaert Glass Engineering. The conference had further support from the Ministry of culture of Croatia, Society of Friends of Dubrovnik Antiques, Embassy of the United States in Croatia, Exponatec Cologne and Museums and Galleries of Konavle.

 

YEAR ROUND CONFERENCE

All the presented project receives a certificate of attendance that proclaims them “members of the Excellence Club”, indeed, the Project of Influence by the fact of being chosen into the selection shown in Dubrovnik. Their contribution is part of our conference publication, figures on the conference web site and is offered on our YouTube Channel. The conference in Dubrovnik is only the brief social version of the conference that is then circulated to our website visitors throughout the year in 1:1 scale, together with the archive of all presentations from the previous editions, - freely accessible.

 

 

THE UNIQUE PLATFORM

Furthermore, though relatively small, this conference is quite unique in its global reach and in its ability to refer to the entire heritage sector. We bring in archives, libraries, virtual institutions, digitally born projects etc. We serve as unique platform for connecting official institutions, civil society and private activities & institutions, different temporary phenomena (pop-up institutions, campaigns, actions). This is why the most often used word by those who liked our Dubrovnik experience is “inspiration”.

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Official photo album is available here: