Heritage as placemaking through artistic means

Abstract

Very rarely are the media and other aesthetic means studied through which cultural heritage gains visibility and an activist momentum, that is, when it is used in contexts that are meant to communicate a message, such as a claim for “conservation”, an appeal for dissent and protest when it comes to alleged erasure of heritage, or the visionary quest to visualise what has been erased but should be rebuilt for urban and social regeneration. Not always are the agents engaged in making these aesthetic works “activists”, they might even reject the term as such. But they have often been placed in the light of such discussions by public stakeholders, often with investments of trust and hope, as important protagonists of “future-making.” They might not be “of the community” claiming to inherit the heritage-site. But they have an interesting relation to them, in that they manage to establish modes of recognition and empathy, trust, communication, and even collaboration. 

 This presentation will focus on the ways in which heritage and placemaking are entangled in the context of aesthetic vision-making means, such as photography and video, but also computer-generated or hand-made design and drawings, community-based art works and archiving. The main focus will be the ways in which artists, architects and archivists in Patan, Nepal, have contributed to making regeneration visible, graspable, bearable, through aesthetic means that are not considered as “heritage” but shape it and its presence after the 2015 earthquakes, that is, ten years ago. At the centre will be Camp-Hub by the Artree collective in Thulo Byasi, Bhaktapur, and architectural plans related to the reconstruction of water bodies, squares and parks in Patan.