This article explores the Collections of Ghent initiative, which aims to make cultural heritage more accessible and engaging. The initiative involves digitising personal and neighbourhood stories to enrich the city’s cultural heritage.
It focuses on breaking down institutional silos and creating an open infrastructure to enable easy access to the city’s entire cultural heritage collection. The CoGhent Box, a high-tech travelling museum, plays a significant role in engaging residents in digitising, sharing, and contributing to cultural heritage. The project also stimulates creative reuse of its collection of data beyond the neighbourhood through hackathons and grant funds.
By the end of its first year, the initiative had successfully engaged 2,500 local people and increased the number of online heritage objects to 75,000. The project’s impact on social cohesion is to be formally evaluated to inform thinking about integrating best practices into the wider cultural field and different policy areas. Plans are underway to integrate a re-scaled, re-imagined, CoGhent Box into the new wing of Design Museum Ghent for continued collective knowledge creation and use.
In summary, this document provides valuable insights into how the Collections of Ghent initiative is leveraging digital technology and community engagement to preserve and promote cultural heritage and it offers a comprehensive overview of the project’s goals, strategies, and achievements.
