The past has a future - Magdalena Rigamonti talks with Prof. Jacek Purchla

Another meeting was held as part of the At a distance cycle. Magdalena Rigamonti talked with prof. Jacek Purchla about his latest book entitled The past has a future. 

How should cultural heritage be treated today? Is its value measurable and how to use it in politics? How does the Polish perspective differ from the practices applied in the European Union? How should one act in order to be the subject of historical politics, not the object of it? What is the conflict between development and heritage? How do cultural and historical policies allow us to exercise power today? What is the role of the city, local government and central offices in heritage management. Do their efforts have to be competitive? These were the main topics of the conversation.

The meeting is available on the ICC profile on Facebook. The meeting was held in Polish.

Prof. Jacek Purchla, lecturer, one of the world's leading experts in the field of cultural heritage. He conducts research on city development, social history and the history of art of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the theory and protection of cultural heritage. Author of over 400 scientific papers, including many books. The founders, a long-term director of the International Cultural Centre, where he still runs the Institute of European Heritage. Chairman of the Polish UNESCO Committee (2015-2020), and in 2016-2017 chairman of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.

He heads the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Economics in Krakow, and is the Chairman of the University Council of the Jagiellonian University. Active member of the Polish Academy of Learning; Vice President of Europa Nostra. Doctor honoris causa of the National University of Lviv Polytechnic. President of the Society of Krakow History and Monuments Lovers and editor of the Krakow Yearbook. Member of numerous organizations and associations, including Comité international d'histoire de l'art (titular member), expert of the European Commission on the European Heritage Label project. In the years 2000-2016, he chaired the Monuments Protection Council at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Magdalena Rigamonti, press and radio journalist associated with, among others with the weekly "Wprost", the station Program IV Polskie Radio 24 and "Dziennik Gazeta Prawna". She is a laureate of the Grand Press 2016 Award and the Dariusz Fikus 2017. She has published the books Without fear. How a Man Dies (co-author: Adam Ragiel), Warsaw 2015; Losses. Soldiers from Afghanistan (co-author: Maksymilian Rigamonti), Warsaw 2015; Stop time. Secrets of Aesthetic Medicine (co-author: Krzysztof Gojdź), Warsaw 2015.