SPICE logo

Citizen curation of cultural heritage

SPICE (Social cohesion, Participation, and Inclusion through Cultural Engagement) is an EU Horizon 2020 funded dedicated to citizen curation of cultural heritage. We are developing technologies that help communities select paintings, artefacts and other museum objects and share their interpretations with others. Through this, citizens can learn more about themselves and develop a better understanding of, and empathy for, other communities. We call this Citizen Curation.

We design methods to allow citizens to share their interpretations

Spice Description Diagram

We use state-of-the-art technologies to develop tools that allow users to create and annotate their own interpretations of cultural heritage. Citizens can use our tools to share their opinions and engage with a diverse range of perspectives.

We foster diverse participation

We work with five different communities of citizens whose voices are often unheard when it comes to their interpretation of cultural heritage. We promote a platform of inclusion in which every voice matters. We design every aspect of the project towards this goal, in collaboration with our communities, making sure that new perspectives on cultural heritage are shared and valued.


Read about our communities!

DESIGN MUSEUM HELSINKI

Finland

Connect senior citizens and families living far from the museum with the Finnish culture.

IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Ireland

Support asylum seekers, children, and others that cannot access the museum phisically, to share their view.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCES

Spain

Engage with children, including those from lower socio-economic groups, and support them in appreciating science.

GALLERY OF MODERN ART

Italy

Enable deaf people and other visitors to share their views on art via storytelling and social media platforms.

HECHT MUSEUM

Israel

Support members of religious and secular communities to share and appreciate the variety of opinion in their communities.

Key recommendations

Reuse

Let cultural institutions become aware of specific legal tools for regulating the reuse of their material, such as the Creative Commons licenses, and use standards for representing the compositional structure, provenance and responsibility of the derivative assets - such as the digital representation of a cultural heritage object and the annotations provided by users when interacting with its either physical or digital manifestation - made available in a digital environment.

Partnership

Encourage cultural institutions to participate in partnerships with companies by ensuring that the innovative actions carried out receive incentives when the activities of the cultural institutions are assessed, allocating time for research and development in cultural institutions activities to be spent on research projects and encouraging the government to support the cooperation between cultural heritage institutions and companies by making available public funds for joint projects with social objectives.

Participation

Maximise citizens' engagement and participation by making known and accessible – in a digital and Web-based environment – the rich heritage inventory under the custody of cultural heritage institutions, even when such cultural resources are not part of permanent exhibitions, and develop online experiences (co-created involving museum visitors) to enable a broader range of cultural activities where citizens have direct access to these resources, especially in situations where physical access might be constrained.

Awareness

Raise awareness of our common European history and values by offering systems, resources and activities, supported by a digital environment, that go beyond the factual and encyclopaedic dissemination of information, and make available cultural institutions' collections for accommodating societal needs for debate, interpretation, reflection, research and freedom of thought and expression.

Accessibility

Tailor cultural activities to specific groups at risk of exclusion to give them a voice and space in the central cultural debates in contemporary society, and guarantee accessibility to all people, including those who are traditionally excluded from gaining access to and contributing to cultural heritage sites and organisations, leveraging digital tools to continuing to bring people to visit the museums even during intense and unpredictable events.

Latest News​

SPICE UPDATE: Culture to everyone

Dear SPICEr

January always starts off with good intentions, but we are here to give you a little push so that these good intentions continue throughout the year. That’s why, in this newsletter, we want to bring you a small sample of this purpose of bringing culture to everyone.

SPICE UPDATE: Autumn Edition

Dear SPICEr

We have welcomed Fall 🍂 with an array of very interesting updates we are sure you are going to love. For example, a new museum definition aligned very closely with the objectives in the SPICE Project: developing of tools and methods of citizen curation that support accessibility, inclusivity, diversity, and community participation.

SPICE UPDATE: Museum Week special

Hello!

Welcome to our monthly update of SPICE Project news and recommendations. Before you head off for vacation, check out these highlights from #MuseumWeek2022.

Partners and third parties

University of Bologna logo

[Project coordinator]

Aalto University logo
Aalborg University logo
Design Museum Helsinki logo
Irish Museum of Modern Art logo
GVAM Interactive Guides S.L. logo
Open University logo
PadaOne Games logo
CELI - Language Technology logo
Complutense University of Madrid logo
CIRMA University of Turin logo
Fondazione Torino Musei logo
University of Haifa and Hecht Museum logo
Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche logo
Turin Institute for the Deaf logo

[Third parties]

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