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In the 12th episode of the podcast “Ukraine Heritage Spotlight”, we travel to Lviv, where we speak with Bozhena Pelenska, the Executive Director of Jam Factory Art Center. This venue, a popular hub for artists from Ukraine and abroad, aspires to become the leading exhibition space in the country.

On 19 June, the Kraków Heritage Forum met for the last time before the summer break. Over 40 representatives from Kraków’s NGOs, informal groups, institutions, and the City Council gathered at the Guild of Food Crafts to continue their work on protecting and promoting Kraków’s culinary heritage by developing a set of recommendations for the city authorities and the Provincial Marshal’s Office.

The Selection Committee, including Katarzyna Jagodzińska PhD, Head of Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Krakow, along with other experts who are partners of the European Heritage Hub project, selected a greater number of initiatives due to their outstanding nature! Which projects received funding and what criteria did they have to meet to secure support? You can find more information in our article.

We discuss how the concept of heritage has evolved over the decades with one of the leading European experts in this field, Professor Jacek Purchla, Vice-President of Europa Nostra. In the podcast, you’ll also learn about examples of best practices and approaches to heritage conservation on our continent.

The Social Forum, developed as part of the European Heritage Hub, is a pilot project co-funded by the EU that supports the Hub’s mission of connecting heritage stakeholders and initiatives across Europe.

In 2022, Bratislava regained one of its most iconic examples of architecture. After a thorough revitalization of the socialist-realist building, commonly known as “The Bridge, of the Slovak National Gallery was reopened in this location. Dr. Alexandra Kusá, the Director General of of the Slovak National Gallery and an art historian specializing in 20th-century art, discusses the construction work that restored the space’s splendor after over twenty years of closure.

In the inaugural episode, “Harnessing the Power of Ukrainian Heritage”, we are in Lviv, where we meet with leading cultural figures to learn about efforts to preserve and safeguard Ukrainian cultural heritage in the face of the ongoing conflict with Russia. Our interviewees include: Lilia Onyshchenko-Shvets, advisor to the mayor of Lviv on heritage protection; Vasyl Rozhko from НеМо: the Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab; Dr. Iryna Sklokina, a researcher at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv; Taras Voznyak, director of the Lviv National Art Gallery; and Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak, a leading Ukrainian historian.

All of this year’s Polish laureates are connected with Silesia: Historic Ignacy Mine, Rybnik (Category: Conservation and Adaptation), Serfenta Craft Revitalization Model, Cieszyn (Category: Education, Training, and Skills), Piotr Gerber PhD, Wrocław (Heritage Champions category).

The 9th of May is a day of “peace and unity in Europe”. We encourage you to celebrate it by joining the Ode to Joy Challenge  which was initiated by Europa Nostra six years ago and reinterpreting the European anthem.

The number of cultural heritage sites in Ukraine is huge, yet with local municipalities struggling to finance the upkeep of buildings, monuments and other treasures, new ways of financing have had to be found. That is where Spadshchyna.UA – which means ‘heritage’ in Ukrainian – comes into play. Listen to Hanna Havryliv who runs the NGO Spadshchyna.UA.

On April 17, 2024, Europa Nostra and the European Investment Bank (EIB) Institute announced the list of the 7 Most Endangered monuments and heritage sites in Europe for 2024. This programme is one of Europe’s leading civil society campaigns to safeguard endangered heritage.

The European Heritage Hub has selected 10 initiatives aimed at identifying exemplary local good practices in the field of cultural heritage that contribute to the green, digital, and social transformation of our society. Among the selected initiatives is the project of the Coal Mining Museum in Zabrze, Poland.