As the adage goes, "History is written by the winners" and the Spanish Civil War (1936War ( -1939 is a example of how difficult it is to revert this process. Franco's regime developed a range of narratives focused on a) the justification of the military rebellion against the democratically elected Second Republic government, b) the "damnatio memoriae" of the Republican armed forces and c) the development of a collective guilt about the war. The transition from fascist dictatorship to democracy did not contest Francoist official discourse and forged a "pact of oblivion" based on the idea that Spanish society should look into the future and forget about the conflict at all levels: from personal memories to cultural heritage. One of the victims of this process of targeted forgetfulness was the Republican Air Force because it was an uncomfortable thorn on Francoist narratives. If the Republic was immersed in chaos and its army non-existent then how did it manage to contest the skies against the most modern German and Italian aircraft? This work describes the activities developed by a long-term public archaeology project designed to rediscover the memory of the people that formed the Republican Air Force. This multifaceted initiative explored the materiality of air warfare through a combination of battlefield archaeology, educational research, museum exhibitions and community engagement. The results presented here are an example of how community-based archaeology projects can promote new critical narratives and rediscover silenced voices even after decades of heavily-biased official history.
The Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in the 2030 agenda point out the need to safeguard cultural heritage and the importance of convergence towards quality education. Through different museum projects (between 2010 and 2021), the DIDPATRI research group of the University of Barcelona has developed heritage museum models following sustainability parameters. The lines of work have been based on the use of previous museum cultures (integrating existing models) to respond to the needs of the present. The working hypotheses have raised the need to build a new social museography around the historical heritage, which can respond to the social demands of citizen education and sustainability. Museography should be oriented to formal and non-formal teaching-learning environments. Social museography must be based on the understanding of historical heritage in broad sectors of the public as well as on the participation of social agents, civil society, and the scientific community. Social museography must be based on the enhancement of heritage resources (tangible or intangible) in a way that is compatible with sustainable development options; it must be built with the support of protocols that consider production costs that are consistent with the economic and social resources available and with the reasonable use of complex technologies. This desire for research (on the paths of a new social museography) has been channeled through the development of research and transfer projects. The results obtained have generated empirical models that have contributed (methodologically) to the development of museographic options that respond to emerging demands in the environment of historical-archaeological heritage.
The Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations (2030 agenda) aim to promote sustainable cities, the need to safeguard cultural heritage, and the importance of quality education. Through different projects, the DIDPATRI research group at the University of Barcelona has developed didactic iconographic models on the historical and heritage dimension of cities. Comprehensible proposals have been made by developing unique techniques and using easily accessible technologies. The working hypothesis has focused on the idea that the models of didactic iconography promote the understanding of the history of the city, and this enables educational actions and contributes to the formation of quality citizenship, aware of the importance of heritage, with a view to the sustainability of urban environments themselves. The components and the layout of the iconographic prototypes tested have been developed with the available technological variables, but, above all, they focus on the conceptual organization of the iconographic contents to show. In other words, it places greater emphasis on techniques than on subsidiary technologies for change. The development of different projects has generated models of empirical effectiveness, which methodologically have contributed to improving, in the key of sustainability, the knowledge of historical urban environments and respect for heritage. The case studies considered in this work are two of the most emblematic developed by the DIDPATRI group: the archaeological site of El Born in Barcelona, and the medieval site of La Seu de Urgell, in the Catalan Pyrenees.
Historical illustrations give us hypothetical visual reconstructions of the past, which contribute to their interpretation, knowledge, and understanding. The progress of software for the design and production of images has optimized the possibilities of generating models of educational and understandable illustrations of spaces, facts, and concepts of the past. At the same time, promoting historical recreation activities allows us to obtain photographic and moving images of a historical nature, which can be integrated into image processing software. This paper describes the experience of the DIDPATRI group (Heritage Education, comprehensive museography and new technologies) the University of Barcelona with the Battle of the Ebro (Spanish Civil War, 1938), concerning the design of models/educational illustrations of the conflict. The developed actions show that, with well-defined criteria, support for recreation, and basic but highly educational software that is understandable and replicable, iconographic models can be obtained at a reasonable cost. The final result provides us with the possibility to understand the past in greater detail. The heritage of the conflict gives us the possibility to reflect, thereby directly affecting the formation of quality citizenship.
The Trinitat Fort, built in the mid-16th century, is an extraordinary example of European military architecture from the mid-16th century, conceived as an artillery machine, whose mission was to protect the natural port of Roses (Girona, Spain). The fortification had a long history of warfare that ended with the Peninsular War (1808–1814), which turned it into ruins. In 2002, the Roses city council planned an ambitious architectural intervention to recover the fortification. The works restored the overall exterior volumetry, with current construction materials. The large interior spaces resulting from the intervention had little in common with the original structures. Starting in 2016, the museum projected to open the fort to the public. The strategy focused on 3D works, which were used to plan museographic proposals and to make an interior space understandable, with an aspect very distant from that of the original construction. It entailed extensive fieldwork analyzing the sources and structural remains that were preserved and surmising the possible architectural solutions the fortress originally contained. Based on evidence and hypotheses, the group carried out a reconstruction from virtual archeology, and it developed a didactic iconography to explain the artifact to a broad spectrum of visitors and students. This iconography was applied on the panels, in the scenography and audiovisuals of the museum, and in the dissemination materials. The museography was implemented between 2019 and 2021. Considering the variables and comprehensive needs for a wide range of users and visitors, we completed the virtual archeology proposal based on realistic criteria, giving importance in 3D to textures and colors. It incorporated the anthropic and movable factors through matte painting techniques and images obtained with the support of re-enactment groups.Highlights: - The Fort of the Trinitat, built in the middle of the 16th century, is an extraordinary poliorcetic piece, conceived as an artillery machine, whose mission was to protect the natural port of Roses (Girona, Spain). - Between 2019 and 2021, an ambitious reconstruction of virtual archaeology has been carried out, developing a didactic iconography aimed at broad-spectrum visitors and formal education students. - The didactic iconography proposal developed in the Fort of the Trinitat does not try to compete with the large market productions, but it does try to explore sustainable intervention models to make the past and its heritage known.
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