EMANUEL VALENTIN

INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MUSEUMS:

EXPERIENCES FROM THE PROJECT E.CH.I.1

Introduction
In the last chapter of his book about “the power of things”, Karl-Heinz Kohl
compares sacred objects with artefacts in museums and argues that the classical
museum is the modern version of the temple or the cult site at the end of a long series of
structural transformations. While the antique temple was not sacred by itself but became
a sanctuary only through sacred objects, the contrary seems to be the case when looking
at the relation between place and object in the classical museum: it is the place of
custody which transforms the objects displayed in museums in extraordinary objects
(Kohl, 2003). If this applies to material objects, what happens then with cultural
expressions in all of its “forms of intangibility” when they are collected, displayed and
communicated in museums?
With the “intangible turn” of the world heritage discussion which had its climax in
UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
adopted on October 17th 2003 in Paris, the intangible cultural heritage became a focus
of present cultural politics (Munjeri, 2004; Vecco, 2010). The term “intangible cultural
heritage” as defined by the UNESCO means «the practices, representations,
expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and
cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases,
individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage,
transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and
groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history,
and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for
cultural diversity and human creativity» (UNESCO, 2003). According to this definition
intangible heritage is manifested in the following domains: a) oral traditions and
expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; b)
performing arts; c) social practices, rituals and festive events; d) knowledge and
practices concerning nature and the universe; and e) traditional craftsmanship
(UNESCO, 2003).
This contribution derives from the experience which I have gathered within the
project “E.CH.I. Italo-Swiss Ethnographies for the Valorisation of Intangible Heritage”
on account of one of its project partners, the Museum Ladin Ćiastel de Tor in the
Autonomous Region Bozen South Tyrol. The Museum Ladin, which entrusted me as

1
Please, cite this book chapter as follows: Valentin, Emanuel. 2013. “Intangible Cultural Heritage and
Museums: Experiences from the Project E.CH.I.” IN Antropologia e beni culturali nelle Alpi. Laura
Bonato and Pier Paolo Viazzo, eds. Pp. 93–103. Mondi locali, villaggi globali. Alessandria: Edizioni
dell’Orso. http://www.ediorso.it/antropologia-e-beni-culturali-nelle-alpi-studiare-valorizzare-
restituire.html.

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researcher for this project, was the only institution with museal character among the
project partners which was confronted with the question, how intangible heritage can be
musealised. Hence, this contribution sheds light primarily on the experiences and
insights derived from the work of one project partner and refers not so much to those
gathered by other partners within this project.

On this example I will speak in this chapter about the challenges museums face with
intangible cultural heritage und will focus on the following questions: How can things
of immaterial nature, things which cannot be grasped physically, be displayed and made
accessible to the public? If intangible heritage has to be understood as “living heritage”
in the sense of UNESCO, is it then possible to bring something “living” into the
museum without risking to embalm or «freeze» (Alivizatou, 2012a, p. 10) it? Or to put
it differently: is it possible for a museum to open itself in such a way that it becomes
able to integrate something “living” which exists beyond its walls? Can museums
replicate the experience of a feast, a ritual, a Maussian fait social total to an audience
who never has been direct spectator of it in the real world, who never has been dipped
into such a 360 degree sensual experience?

The project “E.CH.I. Italo-Swiss Ethnographies for the Valorisation of Intangible

Heritage”
The Interreg project “E.CH.I. Italo-Swiss Ethnographies for the Valorisation of
Intangible Heritage” builds on the mentioned UNESCO convention of 2003 which has
been adopted in 2007 by Italy and in 2008 by Switzerland. Lead partner of this project
was the Archive of Ethnographies and Social History (Archivio di Etnografie e Storia
Sociale AESS) of the Region Lombardy. Aside from this further six partner institutions
participated in the project. On the Italian side these have been the Regional Office for
Ethnology and Linguistics (Ufficio Regionale Etnologia e Linguistica, or Bureau
Regional pour l’Ethnologie et la Linguistique BREL) of the Autonomous Region Aosta
Valley, the Department Museums and Cultural Heritage (Settore Musei e Patrimonio
Culturale) of the Region Piedmont and the Museum Ladin Ćiastel de Tor as
representative of the regional museums in the Autonomous Region of Bozen South
Tyrol (Musei Provinciali Altoatesini). On the Swiss side the partners have been the
Médiathèque Valais Martigny (Canton Valais), the Centre of Dialectology and
Ethnography (Centro di Dialettologia ed Etnografia) in the Canton Ticino and Polo
Poschiavo in the Canton Grisons.
The authors of the project E.CH.I. showed a big deal of creativity in the development
of the acronym of the project. E.CH.I. is on one side the abbreviation of “Italo-Swiss
ethnographies”, which refers both to the ethnographic method applied in the
documentation of intangible heritage and to the territories in the border area between
Switzerland (CH) and Italy (I), on which the project was focussed. On the other side the
acronym refers to the mythology of the nymph Echo. In the description of the project
application we can read:
«Ovid reports that Echo was a nymph particularly talented in the art of narration. She
was so talented that Zeus commissioned her to distract his wife Hera during his frequent
extramarital adventures. Hera, after uncovering the swindle, did not appreciate this
abusive use of the art of narration, deprived the nymph of her talent and condemned her
to repeat only the last words of the sentences she heard. […] Echo, hence, is per
antonomasia the fragment of a tale. And echoes are therefore “voices” which

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reverberate, rebound and dangle after each other – between rocky faces and valley
scenarios – telling cuttings of a tale which, within the sonorous landscape, have
undergone variations of effects, of forms, of interpretations and also of contents»
(E.CH.I. project application, p. 1).
The echoes (in Italian echi), to which the described project is referring, are resound
voices and episodes of tales in Alpine spaces which can adopt different variations,
forms, contents and interpretations. The project E.CH.I. was dedicated to these
immaterial fragments in the territories between Italy and Switzerland and has been
concentrated on the following activities «in order to safeguard and to hand on the
cultural practices and the traditional knowledge» (E.CH.I. project application, p. 6):
a) Identification: The identification of the intangible cultural heritage occurs through
involvement of the community and the realisation of researches which support the
elaboration of dynamic territorial inventories.
b) Documentation: The intangible heritage is a living heritage. As such it is subject
to constant transformation and change. Hence, intangible heritage cannot be
safeguarded directly but can be fixed through the production of documentations, which
allow to verify the evolutions and to understand processes of change.
c) Conservation: Primary goal of the conservation of the documentations is to
facilitate the access to the documented knowledge through the creation of dynamic
catalogue systems which allow a continuing implementation of the information.
d) Dissemination: The intangible heritage is expressed in manifestations of
individual and collective intellectual creativity, which have to be safeguarded through
recognition of the rights of informants while securing the protection and the access to
documentary collections. For this reason the international scientific community has to
be encouraged in adopting a code of ethics which guarantees the respect of traditional
cultures and of their bearers. The transmission of intangible heritage can be promoted
by programmes and initiatives which help the bearers of tradition and foster the
renovation through new forms of creativity.
e) Promotion: The value of intangible heritage shall be disseminated as much as
possible through the organisation of events such as fairs, festivals, seminars and
workshops, through media, radio, television and through the realisation of products with
educative scope which can be used in schools, cultural institutes, etc. (E.CH.I. project
application, p. 6-7).
On the basis of the mentioned activity fields the project follows a common strategy
«which supports the communities in their response to the homologising pressure which
globalisation exerts on peculiarities, on cultural and linguistic pluralities and on the
continuity of some traditional activities, especially in border areas» (E.CH.I. project
application, p. 8). As critics have underlined (Nas, 2002), the safeguarding measures
according to UNESCO are global measures with the aim of counteracting globalisation.
«How is it possible then for local, site-specific and community-related expressions to be
asked to meet the same global and vague criteria in the name of cultural diversity and
anti-standardisation?» (Alivizatou, 2012a, p. 10). Nonetheless, the consciousness about
intangible cultural heritage which is sensitised by the UNESCO convention can act
especially in times of crises as brake handle and retarding element against globalisation,
as “reserve against the accelerated present world” (Hauschild, 2003, p. 11; 2008;
Valentin, 2011).
In order to create a common denominator in the methodological approach a series of
workshops have been organised, which were dedicated to audio and video techniques

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but also to techniques of documentation of intangible heritage, like festivals or
traditional craftsmanship. Furthermore, another important instrument of standardisation
has been developed. This was an internet-based inventory, in which all project partners
catalogued the documentations they have produced. The inventory, which counted 242
documentations in June 2013, can be viewed online under the name “Intangible
Search”.2

E.CH.I. in Gherdëina
The Museum Ladin has concentrated its research activities within the project E.CH.I.
on Gherdëina, a valley which is known in Italian as Val Gardena and in German as
Gröden. Gherdëina together with the Val Badia constitute the two valleys of South
Tyrol in which the Ladins are living. The Ladin identity is primarily constituted by the
existence and valorisation of one particular intangible heritage, the Ladin or
Raetoroman language, which has resisted against the incursion of other languages in the
valleys surrounding the Sella massif at the heart of the Dolomites. Gherdëina borders
directly to those territories of the Dolomites, which have been put on the list of
UNESCO world natural heritage in 2009. Even if this measure of safeguard is dedicated
to the materiality of landscape, the documentations done in Gherdëina during the
project E.CH.I. have to be seen in this wider context.
As mentioned earlier, one of the activity fields of E.CH.I. was the identification of
the intangible cultural heritage through participative involvement of the communities. In
this context, the Museum Ladin has acquired the rights of utilisation for an audio
collection of two persons, Oswald Rifesser and Georg Dellago. Both are Gardenese, i.e.
part of the Gherdëina community, and have interviewed around 80, mostly aged people
from Gherdëina about their lives in the past. Parts of these interviews have been
broadcasted by Radio Gherdëina, the local radio station, within a program called People
tell about life back then” (“Jënt conta dla vita da zacan”). This audio collection with the
duration of approximately 200 hours contains many accounts about costumes, former
lifestyles and peasant knowledge, which have been mostly forgotten. Hence, the audio
collection of Rifesser and Dellago was a precious treasure of oral testimonials on
intangible cultural heritage by single persons, which can be assembled as parts of a
bigger puzzle.
The first step was the digitalisation of the audio collection, which was recorded to a
bigger part on audio cassettes and to a smaller part on mini discs, and its backup on new
storage media. In a second step the content of the interviews have been analysed and
catalogued in the Catalogue of South Tyrolean Cultural Goods (Katalog Südtiroler
Kulturgüter KKS). This implies that the documentary work of the Museum Ladin was
firmly build on a preliminary work which is strongly rooted in the indigenous
community, that is on interview testimonials which have been gathered by two people
from Gherdëina in their own community virtually as “native anthropologists”. Even if
Rifesser and Dellago have not been interested primarily on topics related to intangible
cultural heritage in the sense of the UNESCO, thanks to their preliminary work and to
an in-depth bibliographical research, an extensive list of living and not-living cultural
practices of Gherdëina has been compiled.

2
Intangible Search, http://www.intangiblesearch.eu/.

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 This laid the basis for the ethnographic documentation with participant observation
of living practices in Gherdëina. This documentation was limited to festivals and rituals
in the cycle of the year which have not been documented so much as the Ladin
language, the traditional costumes or the art of wood sculpture. Some selected examples
have been documented with photographs and on video. The videos have been produced
together with the Gardenese video maker Hanspeter Karbon. On one side, in the
production of the videos we had to follow general guidelines of the project E.CH.I. like
the avoidance of voice-over; instead it should be the encountered people who should
narrate the events, the knowledge and the practice. On the other side, the videos had to
be as short as possible since the Museum Ladin was planning to integrate them in its
exposition. As a result the videos have all a duration between 4 and 8 minutes.
Each documentation has been catalogued in the mentioned online inventory
“Intangible Search”. Furthermore, a multimedia station has been developed for the
exposition halls of the Museum Ladin, in which all video documentations and
photographs can be viewed by the public.

Intangible Cultural Heritage: New possibilities and challenges for museums

As we have seen the documentation of the intangible cultural heritage bears new
possibilities and challenges for the work in museums. Some of them are especially
worth to be mentioned:
- From object to knowledge
- From object to actor
- From object to territory
- From object to virtuality
From object to knowledge. The traditional object-focussed museum has always
explicitly or implicitly operated with knowledge since information is conveyed (through
wall charts and other means) and objects are contextualised. The engagement with
material culture requires the combination between artefact and knowledge. «[F]rom a
museum perspective, the collecting of artefacts should always be associated with the
collecting of knowledge, and the informative part of such knowledge derives from
narratives told by key persons» (Svensson, 2008, p. 100). In a museum which integrates
intangible cultural heritage into its exposition, a shift of emphasis from object to
knowledge should take place. The engagement with the intangible cultural heritage
makes the focus on the knowledge explicit and bestows a new significance to it.
From object to actor. The historical picture of the museum as pure object collecting
institution (Bennett, 1995; Duncan, 1995) is definitely out of date. Handling with
intangible cultural heritage asks for an opening of the museum from the object to the
audience, what others have called “peoplecentred museology”, “museological
humanisation” and “civic reorientation” (Alivizatou, 2012b, p. 17). «In this context,
intangible heritage emerges as a parallel framework for reimagining the museum, its
collections and role as a public institution. This raises the issue of community or
participatory museology […] and brings up ideas of cultural inclusion and dialogue
[…]» (Alivizatou, 2012b, p. 17). Today’s museums are much more than a cabinet of
curiosities filled with physical objects. As public institutions museums have to approach
consciously practices of representation and interpretation and plan carefully the
participation of the represented communities so that their knowledge can form part of a
new museal narration together with the knowledge of the scientific experts. «Envisioned
like a cultural centre, a public space for sharing ideas and bringing people together, the

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new museum is based more on dialogue rather than on a one-dimensional dissemination
of knowledge» (Alivizatou, 2012b, p. 190).
The opening of the museums towards the represented communities is important also
because in doing so they “recognise themselves” in the museum. The act of self-
recognition is a fundamental element of identity and is a fundamental element of the
intangible cultural heritage. The fact that the English abbreviation for “intangible
cultural heritage” (ICH) is the same as the personal pronoun for the first person in
German is, I think, a fortunate coincidence. I (that is, “ICH”) am part of a group and as
such I inherited a culture, hence I identify myself with our cultural heritage. In coping
with the documentation of intangible heritage and its restitution museums should pull
off their traditional role and find new ways of approaching people actively. In other
words, the museum should be brought to the population.
Through this shift of emphasis from the object to the intangible heritage the
museums shifts also the focus of its audience. While in the past it was the object which
attracted the audience into the museum, the display of intangible culture can now be
also a stimulation to visit the territory in order to experience by first hand these festivals
and rituals or to buy a traditional product. While in the case of the object the museum
was the guarantor for the conservation of “the original”, the contrary is the case with
intangible heritage: the museum can only be repository of the documentation, i.e. of a
representation, a copy of the original living practice and of the knowledge behind it,
which lies within the community beyond the museum. Hence, the integration of
intangible heritage widens the impact radius of the museum and includes the
community and its territory, to which it refers. The documentation and display of
intangible cultural heritage is not only a measure for the conservation of a snap-shot of
it, but includes also a component of regional development. Certainly, this implies a
critical reflection on what this means for the cultural heritage and which processes of
change go along with it.
From object to territory. If museal artefacts are mediators between not-present and
invisible realities and if especially ethnographic museums represent places «of longing
for an unreachable distance» (Kohl, 2003, p. 258), this must be the case also for the
work with intangible heritage in museums. The display of intangible heritage in
museums becomes a reference on a territory and a knowledge which lies beyond the
museum. I would call this an “external reference”, a term which I know from software
for technical drawing but which could find also an application in the museal work with
the immaterial. Adapted to our needs an external reference can be defined as follows:
An external reference is created when a document A is dependent on another document
B for being representative. If the referenced document B changes, the dependent
document A changes also.3 Document A would be in our case the museal display of an
element of the intangible heritage, while document B would be the living heritage on
the territory as it is being documented and then displayed in the museum.
That means that the object-centred museum has among others the goal to preserve its
collection and its objects against change. But a museum which includes intangible
3
This definition leans against the formulation taken from the online handbook of the 3D CAD software
SolidWorks: «An external reference is created when one document is dependent on another document for
its solution. If the referenced document changes, the dependent document changes also»
(http://help.solidworks.com/2012/English/SolidWorks/sldworks/c_External_References.htm, Last access:
15/04/2013).

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heritage into its collection should overcome notions of loss, salvation and authenticity
and confront consciously with change. As Richard Kurin, of the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington D.C., remarks in an interview given to Marilena Alivizatou, “culture is
not preserved because someone put it in a museum or an archive; it is preserved because
it lives in the society; it is real and it is living” (Kurin in Alivizatou, 2008, p. 50). Since
culture is living and changing we should not stop at the documentation and display of
the status quo of a knowledge but update such documentations periodically in order to
document change. Without such updates museums risk to divulgate out-dated and
wrong information. What happens for example if a documented festival disappears
some years after documenting it and displaying it at the museum? Without an update the
museum would continue to affirm that the festival is still living. The other way round:
what if a practice which was supposed to be dead happens to be revitalised? Without
update the museum would hide its existence.
From object to virtuality. We observe in the case of the online inventory a
“virtualisation” and “digitalisation” of the intangible. The intangible heritage is given
over to a virtual platform, the internet, which is immaterial, too. Parallel to this we have
a process “from intangible to digital cultural heritage” (Hennessy, 2012). If we look at
the online inventory we see a process of transformation from traditional museum to
virtual museum. The museum is going online with its documentations. In the same
moment the interior of the museum is made partly accessible. The museum is
increasingly interconnecting itself to a global context. On the online platform its
inventory is merging with those of other institutions, other regions, other countries.
Here lies an enormous potential regarding the opening up of new target audiences but
also for interregional and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Conclusions
Drawing on the case of the project “E.CH.I. Italo-Swiss Ethnographies for the
Valorisation of Intangible Heritage” this contribution reports the experiences which
have been gathered by the Museum Ladin in dealing with intangible heritage. The
intangible heritage as highlighted by the UNESCO convention bears new challenges
and new potential for the work in museums. Moving “from object to knowledge”, “from
object to actor”, “from object to territory” and “from object to virtuality” entails a
turning away from the historical picture of the museum as pure object collecting
institution. The collection, representation and interpretation of knowledge ask for
participative involvement of the community and an open dialogue. The transformation
of intangible cultural heritage into digital cultural heritage is only a logical consequence
due to the accelerating development of new technologies which allow worldwide
collaboration and promotion. The preservationism which may be justified in the case of
objects is out-dated in the case of the intangible heritage. We cannot counteract the
change and transformation of cultural heritage through documentation and display in the
museum. Traditions, festivals and rituals can no longer be embalmed in the museum.
What we can conserve there is at most snap-shots of these practices on video, audio and
photographs. We should think, as Alivizatou suggests, beyond notions of decay, salvation
or loss and recognise cultural change as new value in coping with cultural heritage
(Alivizatou, 2012b).
A last concluding thought: on February 25th 2013 the 7th South Tyrolean Museum
Day took place. The press release which was published in this context was entitled
“Objects are the heart of every collection”. Of course I acknowledge this statement. But

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at the same time I would like to add: if objects are the heart, then the intangible
heritages behind these objects are for sure the blood which flows in the veins of every
collection.

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 References cited

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and Museology, "International Journal of Intangible Heritage", 3, pp. 44–54.
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P. and Corsane G. (eds.), Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage: Touching the
Intangible, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, pp. 9–21.
Alivizatou M. (2012b), Intangible Heritage and the Museum: New Perspectives on
Cultural Preservation, Walnut Creek, Left Coast Press.
Bennett T. (1995), The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, London,
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Heritage: Touching the Intangible, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, pp. 33–45.
Kohl K.-H. (2003), Die Macht der Dinge: Geschichte und Theorie sakraler Objekte (1st
ed.), Munich, Beck.
Munjeri D. (2004), Tangible and Intangible Heritage: From Difference to
Convergence, "Museum International", 56 (1-2), pp. 12–20.
Nas P.J.M. (2002), Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Culture: Reflections on the
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Svensson T.G. (2008), Knowledge and Artifacts: People and Objects, "Museum
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Valentin E. (2011), Il santo emigrato: Ritual und sozialer Wandel bei sizilianischen
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Websites
Website of the project E.CH.I.
http://www.echi-interreg.eu/

Website of the Intangible Search

http://www.intangiblesearch.eu/