The Legacy of Collective Memory in Digital Culture: Digitisation, Cultural Mapping and Co-Creation

Abstract

Amidst the digital transition, where digital heritage comes to meet the need for preserving and managing cultural information in an era of accelerated and unregulated production, cultural mapping emerges as an aggregating and multidisciplinary approach that calls for participation. In this context, design stands out as a mediator between multiple disciplines, becoming less centred on the materialisation of objects as a purpose, favouring the implementation of co-creation processes and the activation of socio-technical systems connecting people, contexts and technology. Within this background, we highlight the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage, which has been institutionally held by museums, libraries and archives, responsible for collecting, preserving and making it available to the community. This article highlights the impact of the digitisation of culture and the open access policies in memory institutions regarding managing collections and fruition experiences through technology inside and outside the institutions. It also presents participatory methodologies with communities taking an active role in the documentation and safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, and also highlighting some relevant initiatives, particularly developed in Portugal.