Immaterial Heritage

All over the world, recent years have seen a shift in what travelling really means; there has been a steady move towards forms of interaction with places that are increasingly about the emotions and the unique, unrepeatable experiences they can give, far from the common models of mass tourism, and about encouraging ‘staycations’ and gentle mobility, and the promotion of cultural landscapes that are intertwined with the local community.

This new paradigm places travellers in a role of active interpreters of the reinterpretation of places and customs, making them participants in a vision that was anticipated in the Faro Convention (2005) where cultural heritage means “a collection of resources that have been inherited from the past that the people identify as a reflection and expression of their values, beliefs, knowledge and traditions, in continuous evolution, independently of who is actually the owner".

It’s a vision that drops the distinction between material and immaterial heritage, but it’s above all a vision that affirms the right to cultural heritage as part of the right to take part in cultural life, it’s the individual and collective responsibility that places the conservation of cultural heritage and its sustainable use at the service of human development, quality of life and the creation of a peaceful, democratic society, respectful of cultural diversity.

Cultural heritage therefore becomes not just an instrument for empowerment and local development, but becomes shared ‘common goods’ that promote new styles and codes for conservation and new roles for travellers who take part in these processes as ‘temporary citizens’.

The province of Siracusa, an enormous open air museum in the south-east of Sicily, is the unmatched setting for a cultural tapestry made of landscapes, greekness, baroque, art, nature, religiosity, knowledge and tradition. It’s an ideal place to experience reflections on the fragility of today’s world.

Natale Giordano