While museums expand and archives grow, much of the world’s cultural knowledge remains undocumented. Not because it is less important, but because it cannot be stored. Intangible cultural heritage lives in people, in sound, and in gestures. It moves, adapts, and disappears, only to resurface again.
“Museums are becoming platforms for experience, interaction and participation,” said Paolo Mele, Director of Ramdom, during our ongoing online Unfolding Cultural Heritage (UCH) Training and Networking session. A drum may be preserved in a museum, but its meaning lies in the rhythm and the hands that play it.
To support living knowledge, cultural institutions need new approaches. Traditionally, museums, libraries, and archives are designed to collect, preserve, and display. These roles remain valid. But for intangible heritage to survive, institutions must change. They must shift from storage to participation. From showing to sharing.
Intangible heritage is not a fixed story. It is practiced, adapted, and passed on. That requires cultural spaces to be open to change and to people. Not everything can be written down or simply archived. Oral storytelling, music, ritual, and embodied knowledge need different forms of care. They need dialogue and time. “We don’t need to represent communities. We need to work with them,” Ada Facchini, Librarian at Ramdom, shared with the UCH participants.
This is a shift in perspective and a power shift. Art can play a vital role in this process, not as decoration or explanation, but as a method. It allows an exchange without needing to finalise the meaning. Artistic practice can hold complexity. It can carry knowledge across generations, borders, and languages.
Unfolding Cultural Heritage explores these ideas through artistic collaboration in Ghana and Italy. The project connects artists, researchers, and communities who treat cultural knowledge not as a product, but as a process. It is led by Art Life Matters in Ghana, with partners Ramdom and the
Bibliomuseum Centre of Lecce in Italy. For more information, visit https://artlifematters.org/uch/
The next phase of UCH takes place in Tutu, a quiet village in Ghana’s Eastern Region. During the Art Residency program, artists will work with residents to share memories through music, storytelling, and historic practices. Our focus is not on what can be displayed, but on what can be experienced together.
On Friday, 22 August 2025, on World Folklore Day, the UCH team will host a public event in Tutu. It will include the recording and translation of the talking drums, the presentation of a children’s book developed during the residency, and the completion of a mural artwork created together with the community.
Another activity in Tutu is the development of a community-based map of the town, designed to highlight significant historical points and cultural landmarks. It lays the groundwork for an interactive walking tour that guides visitors through the community, introducing them to its stories, places, and traditions. The community will be able to expand the map over time, adding new locations and oral histories.
As Elijah Nii Cunnison, the representative of the National Commission of Culture, noted, “We need more Programs like this, which will make Ghanaians identify with who they are, where they come from, and hold it with value.”
These activities are carried out in close cooperation with the Tutu Traditional Council and are supported by Art Haus, the National Folklore Board, and the National Commission on Culture.
UCH shows that to preserve what cannot be stored, we must keep knowledge alive. This means to embrace co-creation. This is not only an addition to heritage work, but its foundation.
