Safeguarding ICH

Participatory 3D Modelling for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage

The intangible cultural heritage (ICH) – or living heritage – is the mainspring of our cultural diversity and its maintenance a guarantee for continuing creativity. (source: UNESCO)

The use of relief models to reproduce historic events has been a common practice over the past centuries. The use of 3D models for strategic and planning purposes started in the XIV Century. The use of 3D Models within participatory community-led initiatives aimed at documenting and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is a new approach which has been put into practice over the last decade in several countries and is endorsed by UNESCO.

Recorded uses of P3DM in this domain include among others the following:

  • Helping recognizing place-specific knowledge, especially the culture, language, history and traditional ecological knowledge embedded in the landscape
  • Facilitating intergenerational transmission of traditional spatial knowledge
  • Safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage,
  • Consolidating unique cultural identities
  • Raise awareness on the existence and dynamicity of cultural heritage across generations

Documented cases:

Ogiek Peoples in the Mau Complex, Kenya

Participatory 3D Modelling by the Ogiek Peoples of Chepkitale in Mount Elgon, Kenya

Collaborative Resource Use Planning and Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in Fiji

Babongo & Mitsogo at the edges of the Waka National Park, Gabon

Yiaku Peoples and the Mukogodo Forest, Kenya

Traditional Ecological Knowledge within the historical Wechecha Mountain Complex, Ethiopia