Beyond preservation. Embracing change for heritage with Caitlin DeSilvey

Platform Klimaat en Erfgoed and College van Rijksbouwmeester en Rijksadviseurs would like to invite you to the event ‘Beyond preservation. Embracing change for heritage with Caitlin DeSilvey’.

About the event

Do we need to consider alternatives to preserving our cultural heritage in perpetuity? Should we learn how to accept transformation and – in some cases – loss? Can we decide what cultural heritage to relinquish in the face of the climate crisis, instead of leaving the decision to the next flood or wildfire?

As humans, and as heritage professionals particularly, we care for remnants from the past, preserving cultural heritage for future generations and restoring accidental damage to it. This results in thousands of listed buildings, expanding inventories of protected heritage assets and an ever-growing demand for resources required to properly conserve and store.

As with our linear capitalist system and its focus on perpetual growth, our conventional way of preserving heritage may now be facing its limits. Caitlin DeSilvey, Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, will challenge our way of thinking about cultural heritage and its future, encouraging us to reconsider the relation between cultural heritage and natural processes and reflect on our fear of destruction.

Key note speaker

Caitlin DeSilvey is professor at the University of Exeter. Her research explores the cultural significance of change and transformation, with a particular focus on heritage ecologies and climate futures. Her focus on process, rather than preservation, has been articulated through collaborative development of a series of novel concepts, including ‘curated decay’ and ‘adaptive release’. In 2017, she published the book ‘Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving’. She works closely with natural and cultural heritage practitioners and policymakers to translate conceptual innovation into applied adaptation strategies, through advisory roles and active research projects with organisations including the World Monuments Fund, the National Trust, English Heritage Trust, Natural England and Historic England.

Panel speakers

Francesco Veenstra is Government Architect and as such chairman of the Board of Government Advisers since 1 September 2021. He advises the Minister of the Interior and Director-General of the Central Government Real Estate Agency, as well as the government, both solicited and unsolicited. He monitors and promotes the architectural and urban quality of government projects. Francesco has been partner at Vakwerk architecten in Delft since 2017.
Tom Tieman is documentary maker, film director and journalist. His field of work is the northern region of the Netherlands. Climate change, heritage, the changing landscape and the countryside are central themes in his work. For Peergroup he made the site-specific theatre play ‘Huilende Bruiden’ (Weeping Brides) about decayed farmhouses in east Groningen. In 2024, he turned this into a film with the same name that premiered at the Dutch Film Festival. Recently, Tom Tieman founded the collective ‘Ruimtereis’ (Space travel) that creates audio plays in the north of the Netherlands about climate change and the energy transition.
Maartje van Bennekom is heritage professional at Erfgoedvereniging Bond Heemschut. She has a background in European Studies, Public History and Philosophy (University of Amsterdam). Prior to her work in the heritage sector, she focused primarily on contested histories such as colonialism through the podcast (and adjacent projects) ‘Far Too Close’. Since 2023 she works for Erfgoedvereniging Bond Heemschut, an association of volunteers that works to prevent the degradation and/or demolition of heritage and monuments in the Netherlands.

Moderator

Chris Julien is an activist and climate philosopher. He is a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion NL and senior research fellow at Waag Futurelab in Amsterdam. His PhD research at Utrecht University focuses on new materialisms and decolonial ecology, with the aim to develop techniques for ecological governance. In September 2024, he published the book ‘Alledaags activisme: van onrust naar daadkracht in het klimaat tijdperk’ (Everyday activism: moving from unrest to agency in the climate era). He is also co-founder of ‘Cultuurberaad Klimaat’ (Culture Council Climate).