Discovering Chinese Cultural Heritage in Europeana
PAGODE final conference

The Finnish Heritage Agency (FHA) is the nation’s specialist, service provider, developer and authority in protecting environments with cultural history value, archaeological culture heritage and architectural heritage, and other cultural property. It also collects and presents a culture historical national collection, studies material cultural heritage and both supports and develops the museum field nationally. The National Museum of Finland is a part of FHA. FHA’s Picture Collections preserve and depict the history and cultures of the area of Finland and the  people who live and have lived here, the built environment, and the Finno-Ugric cultures, as well as the cultures of areas outside Finland. Picture collections include the extensive collections of the Press Photo Archive. In total, collections consist of approximately 18 million pictures created with different techniques, dating from the 16th century to the present day.

Visit: https://www.museovirasto.fi/en/ 

The Slovene Ethnographic Museum is a museum “about people, for people”, a museum of cultural identities, a link between the past and the present, between traditional and modern culture, between our own and other cultures, between the natural environment and civilisation. It is a museum of dialogue, open, active and hospitable, dedicated to serving the public. It presents and reports on traditional culture as well as mass and pop culture in Slovenia and the diaspora, on non-European cultures, and on the material and intangible cultural heritage of both everyday and festive life. The Museum publishes a scientific periodical “Etnolog” since 1926, as a bulletin of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum. As a rule, one issue is published annually.

Visit: https://www.etno-muzej.si/sl/slovene-ethnographic-museum

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) collect, describe, preserve and provide access to a rich and varied record of scientific publications in support of the teaching, research and strategic goals of the university. The UBL holds over 5 million paper volumes, over a million e-books and hundreds of databases, electronic reference works and digital text and image collections. With close to 3 million journal article downloads per year and more than 44,000 electronic journals full text available, the Library’s digital collection continues to grow at a rapid pace. The Leiden University Libraries has strengths in many distinct collecting areas from collections medieval prayer books to contemporary Asian Art. Of particular note are the collections of Caribbean, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures and languages, Science, Law and Political theory, European History (which includes art history, colonialism, history of science, cartography, pamphlets and history of religions) and European Languages (Italian, English, Slavic Languages and Dutch).

Visit: https://www.library.universiteitleiden.nl/

The Benaki Museum is among the most extensive and innovative museum organizations in Europe. Diverse cultures engage in dialogue with Greek culture and contemporary art movements across a network of venues all over Athens — and beyond.  It was founded by Antonis Benakis in 1930 and subsequently donated to the Greek state. Arranged across a satellite network of 7 museum buildings, the Museum also  features 4 archival departments and an extensive library, currently holding a 500,000-strong inventory covering all periods of Greek culture (from Prehistory to the present) as well as European, Islamic, Pre-Columbian, African and Chinese art.  The Museum has earned international recognition and forged collaborations and partnerships with established cultural entities, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, the University of Oxford and Princeton University. Its collections appear on its website and many other digital platforms, including Europeana, Google Art Project and Museums with no Frontiers.

Visit: www.benaki.org

The National Museum of World Cultures (NMVW) groups together Amsterdam’s Tropenmuseum, the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal and Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. Since 2017 NMVW has been working closely together with Rotterdam’s Wereldmuseum. Together these collections comprise nearly 450,000 objects, 260,000 photographs and some 350,000 items of documentary film and video material. Each of the objects in the collection tells a human story, embodying universal themes such as celebration, mourning, decoration, prayer, love and conflict. Themes that have one thing in common: they show that despite our differences we are all human.

Visit: https://www.volkenkunde.nl/en

KADOC is the Interfaculty Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society at KU Leuven. Established in 1976, KADOC is not only one of the leading cultural heritage institutions in Belgium, but also an international centre for the study of  the interaction between religion, culture and society since 1750. It preserves and discloses an impressive collection of archives, data, and heritage that has emerged from the interplay between religion, culture and society in a Belgian, European and global context.

Visit: https://kadoc.kuleuven.be/english

ICIMSS is a scientific association established in 2002. Its activities are focused on information, education and culture. Among the various activities, ICIMSS has created a portal, the Private Collections Library – www.bikop.eu , which belongs to the network of Polish digital libraries. From this portal and from a second one  www.pictures-bank.eu, a selection of photographs about China was offered in the project for publication as open access content in Europeana.

Visit ICIMSS’ website: www.icimss.edu.pl

 

The Historical Museum of Lausanne (MHL) was recently renovated. It reopened in April 2018 with a new permanent exhibition entitled Lausanne, the Exhibition. As it is housed in Lausanne’s old Bishop’s Palace – a monument of national importance (with the highest rating in Switzerland’s inventory of historical monuments) – the utmost care had to be applied to the substance and integrity of the building.  Due to its historical content and location within Lausanne’s old town, MHL juxtaposes past and present, allowing visitors to step back and forth in time. From its hilltop perch overlooking a modern European city, the MHL showcases history and the importance of passing historical knowledge on to future generations. As part of its collection, the Historical Museum of Lausanne owns the work of Géa Augsbourg (1902-1974), a Swiss artist of the 20th century who visited China in 1959 bringing back an album of sketches and paintings. From this album,  a small selection of oeuvres was published on Europeana for the PAGODE project.

Website:  www.lausanne.ch/vie-pratique/culture/musees/mhl.html