2nd Heritage Forum of Central Europe: The limits of heritage

June 11–14, 2013

The central theme of the 2nd Forum was "The Limits of Heritage". The second decade of the 21st century was favourable not only to deliberations on the mere system of heritage preservation, but also on its dimension and philosophy: What should be preserved? How should relations between contemporaneity and history be built? In the context of international and local lists of objects, sites places and forms of cultural heritage – where does heritage end and when does contemporaneity become heritage?

During two days of deliberations within six thematic sessions, the following current issues were tackled: the limits of reconstruction, the political and economic dimension of heritage, the growing importance of non‑material heritage, and managing big scale objects of heritage.

The 2nd Heritage Forum of Central Europe confirmed that Poland is the leader of Visegrad cooperation in the field of culture. It also strengthened the position of Krakow as the Polish window to Central Europe. It was not a coincidence that the conference took place in the ICC, which for over 20 years has been the voice of Central Europe in the international debate on cultural heritage, as well as conducting research and carrying out specialist educational programmes in the field of heritage.

The Forum was attended by researchers and experts, not only from the V4 countries, but also from almost 20 European countries, countries in Asia and Australia. Thanks to the ICC, the issues of cultural heritage of Central Europe transcend far beyond the borders of the V4 countries. The conference was opened by a lecture by Prof. Joseph Rykwert, a renowned researcher of architecture. Among 78 speakers at the Forum, there were: Prof. Marie‑Theres Albert, Prof. Gregory J. Ashworth, Prof. Ewa Chojecka, Peter van Dun, Dr. Tamás Fejérdy, Dr. Krzysztof Kowalski, Prof. Małgorzata Omilanowska, Prof. Jacek Purchla, Dennis Rodwell, Dr. Marko Špikić, Dr. Gábor Soós and Dr. Jan Sucháček.
The Forum’s closing ceremony was hosted by Bogdan Zdrojewski, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland. During the ceremony, the ministers of culture from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary presented the International Visegrad Prize, also known as the “Visegrad Cultural Prize”, for 2012 – it was awarded to the Jan Amos Komeńsky Museum in Uhersky Brod (the Czech Republic).