Enforced distance as a catalyst and creative disruptor of heritage narrations: Caring for people, culture and planet through inclusive storytelling

Concerns about stubbornly prevailing systems of design pro-duction and consumption that negatively impact people and planet have never been more prominent than during the past two decades, with a marked increase in industry, consumer and academic interest in narratives (if not necessarily action) around sustainable design practices laying claim to handling the environment with care. On a similar trajectory, but surprisingly infrequently connected, academic and institutional endeavours to give voice to makers and their culture in the wake of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. (https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention)
Cumulus Antwerp 2023’s paper track ‘Handle with care’ is a welcome platform to report on a project that connected these two pressing challenges of the 21st century, to elevate care in design beyond its human (and planetary) focus. This paper shares insights from a funded research project that allowed academics, technical specialists and makers in Scotland and India to consider digital entrepreneurship opportunities around heritage to benefit environments, makers, users and craft practices. The ‘Covid lockdown impact on craft capacity’ (CLICC) project started at the height of the COVID 19 disruption to supply chains and travel and explored how new realities around digital engagement could shock a languishing sustainability agenda into the mainstream of production, consumption and protection of heritage crafts, therein exploring how technology, culture and design might be harnessed in a way that embodies kindness and concern for people, for objects and for the planet. The team used an inclusive ethnological approach by enlisting potential consumers to shape broad content parameters for what digital making narratives might constitute and who the target audience might be, before employing artisans to produce moving image pilots around their craft. It brought together stakeholders in NGOs, academia and cultural industries to use design thinking and co-design practices to determine hardware, technical skills and content guidance needs if digitisation of intangible heritage were to help realise an inclusive preferred future of making. The emphasis was on futures for everyone and everywhere, with design in a pivotal role to help take care of past objects and practices as well as meeting future pro-duction and consumer demands; a multi-lingual production guide for filming heritage processes now exists as a free and highly visual resource to reach many artisan communities. The project tested digital technologies to enable direct collaborations between makers and consumers at a distance, through circular design paradigms, and for an evolution of practice that is dedicated to simultaneous care for human, planetary and cultural resources. By sharing our findings we seek dialogue with the CUMULUS crowd to formulate new agendas that further advance truly inclusive co-design practices towards sustainability, acknowledging the fact that our natural environment (...) and cultural inspirations and practices are forced to adapt to current and future global challenges, with heritage having an untapped potential to being a guiding resource in this transformation.