The Heritage of Natural Catastrophic Events

A workshop exploring the importance of heritage and cultural activity for resilient communities in the context of natural catastrophic events.

The School of Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex, and the StoryLab Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University invite you to a one-day long workshop focused on the importance of heritage and cultural activity in relation to resilient communities in the context of natural catastrophic events.

The workshop will take place during the week of the 40th anniversary of the Irpinia earthquake (23 November), South Italy, and will provide a premier opportunity to engage with disaster resilience thinking and practice across multiple specializations (i.e. heritage studies, film, media, architecture, conservation), as well as interacting with the community affected by the 1980 earthquake. Members of the community of Senerchia will be able to interact remotely with multimodal stories of resilience in a 3D immersive environment.

This will also be an occasion to present our documentary Italia Terremotata, and explore the use of immersive visualisation and multimodal storytelling as powerful means to foster identity and community resilience, as well as preserving the heritage of natural catastrophic events. Italia Terremotata produced a VR immersive documentary that integrates 3D visualisation and multimodal storytelling to recount the story of the resilient community of Senerchia in south Italy, one of at least 40 towns almost completely destroyed by one of the most devastating earthquakes in Italian history; the 1980 Irpinia earthquake which left 2483 people dead, 7700 injured, and 250,000 homeless, and had and still has a long-term impact on rural communities in Irpinia (South Italy). After the earthquake, most of the inhabitants of Senerchia lived in prefabricated houses for more than 20 years before they were able to occupy the new town, built next to the ruins of the abandoned old town. The community of Senerchia, and other affected towns, are still recovering from this life-changing event and are telling this story through the documentary.

The workshop will be in the form of a Zoom online webinar divided in two panels:

1. an introductory session in the morning, where experts will present research on risk awareness, community engagement and resilience in the context of natural catastrophic events;
2. a second session in which the team who has contributed to the development of the VR documentary Italia Terremotata will introduce the case study, present the ethnographic research informing the documentary, and discuss the impact of creative practices on heritage research.

 To book on this workshop, please register via Eventbrite.