8 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Three Key Questions on Culture, Cultural Heritage and Climate Change is a round table aiming at throwing a little drop in the wide ocean of climate change. The Fondazione Scuola dei beni e delle attività culturali, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, has carried out a challenging project concerning these themes. The project was about the feasibility of setting up an Observatory on climate change and cultural heritage in the urban context. This project is one of the initiatives included in the Urban Agenda for the EU, promoted by the European Commission. I would like to outline three simple reasons why the Fondazione is highly committed to these themes. First of all, I wish to stress that in this kind of policy a gap can be found between theory/strategies on one side and daily practice on the other side. We think that training and dissemination are fundamental for bridging this huge gap. The second reason is that, in our opinion, this gap can only be bridged through cooperation: connections are very important in this perspective and today we are here to try to put together various perspectives that deal with culture and climate change (researchers, pilot actions, activists, artists, etc.). Finally, we think that dealing with climate change and cultural activities requires transversal competencies and not only specialisms. Therefore, the Fondazione – as an educational institute dedicated to people operating in managing culture – is deeply committed to enabling and training transversal competences. We think that the new complex challenges regarding cultural heritage can be faced only by professionals with a profile rich in transversal, horizontal and specialised skills. In this context, the round table revolves around three questions on how to talk about the climate crisis and culture, as the understanding of this issue is crucial to move from theoretical strategies to daily practices. The round table sets out to discuss the ways in which culture professionals should act in order to contribute to the topic: is it an individual or a collective responsibility? Should they act in a cognitive or in an effective way? Do they acknowledge any alternatives to “loss and damage”1? The Three Key Questions on Culture, Cultural Heritage and Climate Change round table’s recording is available on the Fondazione’s web learning platform, where one can find a rich catalogue of lectures, conferences and other educational material. “The Culture/Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Knowledge Base”2 offers the first deliverables of our project, together with a rich source of data and information about culture and climate change, such as policies, programmes, projects, etc.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExODM2NQ==