Drawing from the wider literature and our experience in the Mingei project, we set out a series of ten steps that highlight tips, tricks, good practice and Heritage Crafts-specific challenges. The advice is structured based on the 2003 ICH definition of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage but starts with an extra preparatory step: introspection. From introspection we take you on a journey of working with Heritage Crafts Communities, through research and preservation to promotion and revitalisation. To explore each of the ten steps, we illustrate it with good practice drawn from case studies from Mingei and from our research.

1. Introspection

Before reaching out to craft communities, it is important to understand the role and position of your institution, now and in the past. Take a moment to examine the way your organisation has represented and engaged with crafts in the past up until today. If you are an organisation that looks after tangible cultural heritage related to Heritage Crafts, look at your collections. Where are crafts present in your collections and how are they described or labelled? For example, does your organisation refer to them as applied arts or folklife? Understanding the lens through which the organisation you work for has collected, studied and interpreted crafts will help you see what perspectives might be missing. Through introspection, you can better understand the relationship your organisation had with craftspeople in the past, while also anticipating how you might be viewed by Heritage Crafts communities today.

Mingei case study, Haus der Seidenkultur (Germany). The Haus der Seidenkultur is founded at the site of the last silk weaving workshop. The original tools to create point paper designs, punch cards for Jacquard looms and the looms themselves were present at the site before the museum existed. The museum was founded in response to the workshop ceasing production and in close collaboration with silk weavers that had worked at other local silk factories.

2. Identification

Do you have a clear understanding of the diversity within or among the communities related to the Heritage Crafts you are working with? Try to list all the people involved in the craft and differentiate between Heritage Crafts communities and stakeholders.

Once you have done this, do some desk research to find out who the key people might be who could introduce you to the community. Always make sure if a person you consider to be a representative of the community is indeed capable of representing it. Try to understand what this person’s motivation might be to take on this role of representative. Do they have an alternate agenda? Ask for introductions to other community members and make clear you find it important to better understand the diversity within the community. If a person is unwilling or unable to make these introductions, it is probably important to better understand why this is the case. Stay aware of potential alternative stories or diversity within the community while you conduct your work. 

In most cases, it will be impossible to meet with all the members of a Heritage Crafts community, but when deciding how to invest your time, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do you have a clear overview of all the different Communities related to this Heritage Craft? Think about practitioners of the various stages of the craft, formal or informal students, and others who are directly affected by, though not participating in the craft. 
2. Who are the key representatives of these different communities? 
3. What are events or places where you could informally meet a wide range of community members, as an opportunity to identify more relevant partners?

External case study, Shetland Museum (Scotland). Shetland textiles are part of Shetland culture and visitors to Shetland Wool Week are known to want to engage in all aspects of the islands and their traditions. The relatively small scale of the event and the connection with the local community are part of the success of Shetland Wool Week. To make this possible, locals had to be willing to participate. The organising committee first invested in relationships with experienced knitters, who were hired to teach several classes at the event. This meant these knitters could both make money from their finished product and also by teaching others how to knit in the Shetland tradition. Younger knitters are trained to become teachers themselves, to make sure this skill does not disappear either. As well as teachers, the organisation works with farmers and crofters, asking them to give tours of their farms and talk about their work. The organising committee advises farmers on creating an event that will match the expectations of participants and provide an opportunity for farmers to explain their role in the production process.

3. Research

Most Heritage Crafts can be researched through desk-based research to a point. Historic and contemporary descriptions, videos, photographs and other physical materials related to the craft might help you get a sense of it. But because Heritage Crafts consist of tangible and intangible heritage, a lot of the research can only take place in collaboration with Heritage Craft Communities. Firstly, it is important to understand the status of the craft among these communities. Does their view of and valuing of the craft match that of the documentation you have studied? Or do you see differences that need to be further explored? 

For the Mingei project, we are exploring how to digitise both the tangible and intangible elements of Heritage crafts. To do this, the technical and heritage partners on the team have identified the many different elements that could be studied to create a good understanding of each craft. Physical items are materials, artefacts, manufacturing tools or machines, protective or traditional clothing relevant to the craft, as well as the workspace(s). Craft practices encompass actions of the practitioner(s), which means our research should not be limited to ‘things’, but should also include the bodies of the practitioners, as well as their motions. It is clear that this research cannot be done in any other way other than in collaboration with practitioners. Craft understanding involves the identification of craft processes, separating them into activities and actions, the spatial and physical expression of craft processes, their temporal organisation, as well as the identification of the involved objects and actors.

Mingei case study, Musée des Arts et Métiers (France). Once the glassblowing project in the Musée des Arts et Métiers started, museum staff decided to move forward with an ethnographic study. One of the curators joined the glass blowers in their laboratory in an attempt to replicate one of the chosen objects of the collection so as to understand connections with the old crafts techniques, differences and breakthroughs in glass-blowing both in the past and in the present. The ethnographic study involved participatory observation, taking photos, fieldwork notes, cognitive walkthroughs (taking videos and revisiting the videos with the craftspeople), interviews, and common work sessions with the technology partners who were there to digitise the crafts.

When it comes to understanding the craft fully, we also have to identify points where decisions are being made in the process, alternative techniques, and the correction of mistakes. We have to understand if the craft is changing, and if so, how. If you want to describe a craft, you would need to collaborate with Heritage Craft Communities to develop a vocabulary of terms, verbal definitions, and visual descriptions that should include the materials, tools, and products of a craft. Holistically approaching a Heritage Craft creates a lot of data. These data need to be organised in terms of craft roles and steps, the materials and the actions used. This organisation of data needs to work with the tools or machines that you will use to map the craft tasks and processes. 

Working with Heritage Craft Communities in your research phase can take many different forms. Depending on the situation, you might choose or be able to use techniques that allow for more or less active engagement. Techniques you could use include co-creation, ethnography, participant observation and interviews. 

4. Documentation

The output of the research phase is documentation. As research methods vary, so too will the type of documentation you produce. The primary output may be in the form of notes, images, audio-visual recordings, reports, etc., that describe the operational part of the process or stories relating to the socio-historical context of the craft. We propose the use of storyboards to organise the output of this process as a useful tool for (a) illustrated scripts that separate actions into simpler ones and (b) validating this transmitted information with the craft community, collecting feedback, and identifying parts of the process that may be underrepresented. Storyboards can contain temporal arrangement, visualisations, verbal description of actions and activities, and identify the involved objects and actors.

Mingei case study, The Mastic Museum of the PIOP Museum Network (Greece). During a visit to the island of Chios, we found ourselves interviewing local Mastic growers on the town square of a local village, collecting audio recordings of our conversations and taking pictures with our smartphones while a drone flew overhead, capturing footage that would allow us to create a 3D model of the entire village.

5. Preservation

To understand how a Heritage Craft can or should be protected it is important to understand the past, current and future threats facing the craft. Heritage Craft Communities are best placed to understand these threats. Is there a limit to the source materials needed for the craft? Are certain tools or instruments no longer in production? When the craft relies on selling the end product, maybe the market for this product has dried up or demand has changed. Perhaps there is less interest in maintaining the craft among younger generations. If so, why is this the case? Only when we have mapped the threats facing a craft, we can start thinking about potential ways of protecting it. What protective measures are acceptable needs to be decided together with the Heritage Craft Communities. Is it possible to start using other source materials or instruments, or is this unacceptable? To what extent can the outcomes of the Heritage Craft be monetised, or patterns and products altered? These questions have no one-size-fits-all answers but need to be explored through intensive, collaborative work with Heritage Craft Communities. 

Mingei case study, The Mastic Museum of the PIOP Museum Network (Greece). Mastic growers are actively involved in creating new and innovative products, such as skin care products and supplements using the mastic they collect. This innovation does not negatively impact their Heritage Craft, because they, as a community, are the undisputed owners of their craft and have the power to set boundaries. They can identify which elements of their tradition they want to maintain as they are, and where there is space for innovation. This shows how innovation and tradition are not opposing forces, but can exist alongside each other, as long as the Heritage Craft Community has the autonomy to set boundaries. In contrast, although the looms at the Haus der Seidenkultur could produce all kinds of fabrics, the fact that they were traditionally used to create ecclesiastical vestments and altar hangings is integral to the story of the workshop and the specific Heritage Craft that was practised there.

6. Protection

To understand how a Heritage Craft can or should be protected it is important to understand the past, current and future threats facing the craft. Heritage Craft Communities are best placed to understand these threats. Is there a limit to the source materials needed for the craft? Are certain tools or instruments no longer in production? When the craft relies on selling the end product, maybe the market for this product has dried up or demand has changed. Perhaps there is less interest in maintaining the craft among younger generations. If so, why is this the case? Only when we have mapped the threats facing a craft, we can start thinking about potential ways of protecting it. What protective measures are acceptable needs to be decided together with the Heritage Craft Communities. Is it possible to start using other source materials or instruments, or is this unacceptable? To what extent can the outcomes of the Heritage Craft be monetised, or patterns and products altered? These questions have no one-size-fits-all answers but need to be explored through intensive, collaborative work with Heritage Craft Communities.

External case study, Heritage Weaving Communities  (India). Both Europe and India face the same biggest challenge in terms of Heritage Crafts. The numbers of Heritage Craft practitioners are dwindling, and the population is aging, as young people move to cities or find employment elsewhere. The big difference between Europe and India, however, is the context within which this challenge takes place. In India, this context consists of more significant rural isolation, greater socio-economic differences and cultural differences between rural communities and city dwellers. Where in Europe often local communities can maintain a craft as a hobby, or for example develop a heritage site that can facilitate the safeguarding of a Heritage Craft, this is not an option in most rural communities in India due to poverty, a lack of infrastructure and other socio-political structures. The solution surfacing in India is also different from that in most of Europe; it is commercial. For the case study at hand, ensuring weavers receive fair and regular pay for their heritage products is the best way to safeguard this particular Heritage Craft. A good example of a company working in this model is Jaipur Rugs, a company specialising in producing heritage rugs for a global market.

7. Promotion

In theory, anyone can promote a Heritage Craft. From opening a shop, either brick and mortar or online, to sharing products on an Instagram page, promotion can take many forms. However, as the example of the Shetland Wool Week shows, involving Heritage Craft Communities can be crucial for enhancing the impact of the promotion activities, both for the Communities involved and other interested parties, such as researchers and customers.

External case study, Shetland Museum (Scotland). The unique qualities of Shetland wool and woollen products have drawn outsiders to the islands for decades. They come to do research, often with the intention to share the outcomes, be it knowledge or patterns, with a wider audience. The local community did not necessarily support these outside researchers and would be reluctant to share their information. Still today, some are very protective of their patterns and techniques. There is a sense of wanting to protect the craft, not wanting outsiders to ‘steal’ a local tradition. Yet Shetland Wool Week was set up in 2009 with the specific intention to draw outsiders to Shetland and create awareness of Shetland wool and woollen products outside of the islands. Initially, locals did not engage much with Shetland Wool Week: they considered it something for tourists. What made and continues to make Shetland Wool Week a success is a combination of two approaches. First, a good marketing strategy and secondly, a continuing commitment to engage locals who are involved in the wool industry in some way, from farmers to knitters. Once the local community started to see the event’s value, its impact started to grow locally, nationally and internationally. The Shetland Wool Week meant that the tourist season was extended into September. It enhanced international interest in Shetland’s knitting heritage, even resulting in #fairislefriday on Instagram.

8. Enhancement

If you are used to working in a more traditional heritage field and deal primarily with tangible heritage, the idea of ‘enhancing’ heritage might seem a contradictory term. But since intangible cultural heritage is a living and evolving kind of heritage, a decision can be made to enhance it, or in other words, to further improve its quality, value, or reach. Our case studies of the Chios Gum Mastic Growers Association, Shetland Wool Week and Jaipur Rugs show that stakeholders like external parties, a research lab, an organising committee or a commercial company can help enhance a Heritage Craft by introducing new uses and products, a new market, new patterns or ways of working. However, in all of these cases, the Heritage Craft Community had to be involved in the process.

External case study, Heritage Weaving Communities (India). The Jaipur Rugs company had created an international market for traditional rugs created in various Indian regions. One way to enhance the production of the rugs was to create workshops where weavers can come together to work on their looms. While this approach was successful in some places, in most cases the weavers did not want to move their work to a workshop. Traditionally, weaving rugs had always been a cottage industry, done at home alongside many other activities, related to taking care of the family, but also farming. Weaving was not the only source of income and making it so, for many weavers, did not weigh up to the flexibility they enjoyed or needed when weaving at home and combining it with other tasks. In order to honour the Heritage Craft tradition, the community’s interest came before that of the rug company. In this case, what might have seemed an enhancement from a business perspective was not an enhancement from the point of view of the Heritage Craft Community.

9. Transmission 

How are the knowledge and skills related to a Heritage Craft transmitted? How does a Heritage Craft Community train the next generation? And who is allowed to hold certain knowledge or skills? When thinking about safeguarding a Heritage Craft, either by analogue or digital means, these are crucial questions. Firstly, these questions come back to ownership and respecting community knowledge and skills. But secondly, there is usually a very good reason why a Heritage Craft is being shared or taught the way it is. The process of teaching or training is inherent to the craft itself and therefore should be taken into consideration when developing any kind of educational resource about the craft. This does not mean an understanding of the craft can only be transmitted traditionally, but it does challenge us to find a middle ground that respects the traditional learning trajectory. 

Mingei case study, Musée des Arts et Métiers (France). Each month, an artisan was invited to design, in collaboration with the public department, the content of a workshop according to his/her crafts activities (jewellery, mosaic, clockmaking, silk painting). Once the activity was decided, the craftsperson trained the museum mediator in charge of this public activity to his/her craft and taught them their skills. Then, the mediator connected with the public and transmitted to them the craft he/she learned from the craftsman/woman. The mini-workshops reached thousands of people. Due to this success, the museum decided to perpetuate the project and to create the “Fabricateurs” (Makers) as a permanent workshop space where the public is invited to do things with their hands in the museum. This is important because as a museum of the history of technology, the public needs to understand the value of making in knowledge production and what it means to “know by doing”.

10. Revitalisation

Just as Heritage Crafts change and adapt, they can also fade or lose meaning and relevance for a Heritage Craft Community. It might not mean the community is no longer interested in the craft; in fact, they might still want to preserve it as a Heritage Craft. But at the same time, they might not have the time and energy to invest in maintaining the craft as it is, or once was. Freezing a Heritage Craft is a sure way for it to lose its meaning over time. For the same reasons, it is not necessarily useful to look back in time, through books and images, for example, and try to find the moment in time when the craft was most ‘authentic’. This is the opposite of revitalising. To revitalise a Heritage Craft, the Heritage Craft Community should be involved in a conversation about what the craft once meant to them, what it means now and what it could mean in the future. Which techniques must be kept or brought back? Where could machines be used to create a faster process, while maintaining the important heritage qualities of the craft?

Mingei case study, Haus der Seidenkultur (Germany). When the Haus der Seidenkultur  opened in 2000, the workshop had not been in operation for nearly twenty years and the last weaver who had worked there had passed away sometime before that. To make the workshop operational once more, the Association of Friends had to rely on the knowledge and expertise of its volunteers. Due to their old age, many still had some experience using more traditional methods, although they had spent their working life in more modern factories. One could say that by working at the museum, they became part of the Heritage Craft Community of that particular workshop. Through action research, this Heritage Craft Community expanded its knowledge and skills, safeguarding a Heritage Craft which had been on the brink of becoming extinct.

Mingei partners worked widely with diverse stakeholders in heritage crafts communities over the course of the project, through co-creation, research, documentation, digitalisation and much much more. Here we share good practice guidelines we have developed to guide engagement with heritage crafts communities in digital projects. This guidance is published in tandem with our ten safe-guarding steps.

1. Do your homework

Before engaging with a Heritage  Craft Community, do your homework. Gathering as much information as possible about who they are, what their background is, and what the cultural and socio-economical context in which they operate is. This information will not only save time and help in the preparation of the appropriate material for the activity but also may prevent possible awkward social interactions or even faux pas from happening (i.e., doing something that is against local traditions and customs or asking an inappropriate question). This aligns with the ‘Introspection’ section presented in the ten safe-guarding steps. 

2. Communicate clearly

Clear communication of activity goals, processes, and expectations is an important factor for a successful activity outcome. All parties involved should be on the same page as to who, why, how, and where the activity is going to be executed. Share this information well ahead of time so that enough time is allowed for the parties involved to ask for clarifications or express any concerns.

3. Be empathetic

Heritage Craft practitioners are highly skilled and understand their craft in a holistic, sometimes visceral way. However, the world of digitisation might be new to them and an engineer’s or programmer’s approach to their craft might be very different from how they view it themselves. Also, their age or (cultural) background might mean certain requirements need to be met that might not be commonly encountered by technologists. Sessions should be adapted to participants’ requirements and not the other way around. 

4. Be flexible

This refers to all aspects of planning and executing any collaborative activity with Heritage Crafts Communities or individual members. It means to be prepared to face unforeseen challenges and react accordingly. No matter how well prepared for the activity the team is, things can go different than expected. It is important to deal with such challenges promptly and accommodate changes to the original plans without compromising the value of the activity. 

5. Ease the fear of technology

In digital cultural heritage projects, not all partners involved are familiar with state-of-the-art technologies and applications. Terms like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Avatars, etc., may be foreign to most people involved.  Moreover, their lack of technical expertise may make them reluctant to get involved in any technology-related decision making from fear that they have nothing of value to contribute to this aspect. To avoid such a situation from happening and encourage cultural heritage partners to engage fully in all stages of the project, the technical partners need to ease their fear of technology. Some of the ways to do that are to build technology or application demonstrators, build working or non-working prototypes that showcase the possibilities available, and to showcase existing examples of technologies that have been used in similar situations.

6. Establish a widely understood reporting medium

Craft understanding is an iterative process and alignment of all participants should take place prior to each new technology development iteration. A commonly understood reporting medium will provide insights on the outcomes of an iteration and allow further elaboration. For example, storyboards are useful for (a) illustrated scripts that decompose actions into simpler ones and (b) validating this transmitted information with the craft community, collecting feedback, and identifying parts of the process that may be underrepresented. 

7. Be considerate towards the needs of older participants

It is often the case that craft practitioners who represent an endangered craft are older people. When involving them in any type of project-related activity such as interviews, demonstrations, or co-creation workshops, there are a few points that the team needs to take into consideration to ensure a positive experience for them. These are:

• Duration of activity: keep the duration of the activity as short as possible and provide frequent breaks for refreshments, use of bathroom facilities, etc.
• Pace: people learn and think at different paces. Keep that in mind when planning and scheduling the activity and always include some buffer time to avoid rushing through the activity or running out of time.
• Envisioning abstract concepts: bear in mind that some people have no or limited prior experience in modern technologies. For example, it would be unrealistic to ask a group of people unfamiliar with digital technology to design or sketch an application/system from scratch without having a point of reference. We have found that it works best to start such activities by showing prototypes or other examples of technologies in similar contexts of use before asking for any type of input from them. Once people understand how a type of technology works and see examples of it in use, then they can then start envisioning how they can be of use for presenting the storyline of the craft they represent.

About the Centre des Arts et Métiers

The Centre des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), Paris, France, hosts a museum of technological innovation and contains objects related to both the artistic and more industrial production of glass. Furthermore, it holds historic archives regarding the artefacts and techniques under study. All of these perspectives were harnessed in the Mingei pilot installation, which was open until the beginning of April 2022.

The pilot installation: training the public in glass blowing processes through re-enactment

The installation targeted craft presentation through an exploration of the workspace, as well as craft training through an interactive experience where users re-enact gestures of a glass master holding a tool and receiving audiovisual feedback on the accuracy of their performance. Preliminary evaluation results show high acceptance of the installation and good user interest.

Glasswork is a traditional craft that combines hand and body gestures and a thorough understanding of the material. It is a challenging craft because the material changes states from liquid to solid during production. While this complexity was not presented in the visitor-facing installation, in Mingei more broadly we pushed forward the technical means for capturing and conveying these sensory aspects of glasswork, that is to say, the requirements of dexterous aspects and tool manipulation in craft presentation and preservation. 

Learning and iterating: what we learned from user-experience evaluations

After the technical validation of the installation, we conducted a short preliminary evaluation with museum personnel. The first part of the preliminary evaluation was conducted with users from the education department of the museum who were invited to experience the installation and mimic the craftsperson actions using the bench and tools provided. What was learned led to changes to the user-interact (UI) to (a) provide real-time help to users to guide them through the training process and (b) enhance the feedback users get while using the app to better understand whether they are copying the movements right or wrongly. We fixed a glitch that meant that users sometimes thought they were doing it wrong because the feedback came too slowly. stopped with the application because they didn’t receive fast enough, and instead thought they were doing it wrong. 

A wider evaluation with visitors was conducted later. We asked a user-experience evaluator to monitor how users interacted with the installation. Minor issues with the UI were improved, including the addition of introductory screens to assist users to know when the presentation element had finished and when the training session was beginning (and when they were expected to get active). 

Responses from museum visitors

There were regular visitors to the installation, located as it was in part of the impressive church in the museum building, Saint-Martin-des-Champs. An audio component meant that the installation piqued the interest of those outside. 

Feedback collected via our post-interaction questionnaire showed that what seemed to impress visitors the most was the whole concept of being able to mimic the gestures, or as one of the visitors characteristically wrote “being in the shoes of the glassmaker” and receive feedback on the accuracy of the movement in real-time. Using a real-life workbench and glass blowpipe only added to the authenticity of the represented scene and further enhanced the whole user experience.

Find out more for yourself in the video below and explore the digital presentation of glass-blowing on the Mingei Open Platform.

At the Haus der Seidenkultur (HdS) in Krefeld, Germany, the participation of the museum’s enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers in the Mingei project has led to the installation of a new self-guided tablet application and the improved digital presentation of information about the museum’s ecclesiastical silk crafts heritage. Here Cynthia, the most active museum volunteer in the Mingei project, shares what she has learned about the public response to this digital innovation, now part of the permanent exhibition.

The Mingei applications

HdS is now home to a tablet app that guides visitors through the museum and narrates the socio-historical context of the museum exhibitions. The application uses ten hot spots in the museum, each one connected to relevant narrations and audio-visual presentations that unveil the hidden treasures of the craft of textile manufacturing. In addition, scannable items and artefacts in the museum allow the user to access even more information that is not included in the museum application. The museum tour guide is available in English and German, facilitating greater international reach.

Anecdotes and feedback from the first testers

Some 50 visitors have tested the new Mingei apps and the majority found them pleasing and interesting. “We now view our town from a completely different perspective“, say those who discovered Krefeld on the silk routes.

“Attractive options for fun and entertaining participation in convivial company have also been developed for game enthusiasts at Haus der Seidenkultur“.

That was the assessment of participants in a workshop where the new apps were tried out.   

Particular attention was paid to the tablet app which guides individual visitors through the museum. This is the task of an avatar who tells them where to go. “The path leads into an exciting future with new options for innovative presentation,” is how it was perceived by a 60-year-old visitor. Another guest was pleased that they herself could decide just how much they wanted to learn about the job of, for example, the card puncher.

A person well-versed in the local cultural scene confirmed “that the protagonists at the museum have succeeded once again in combining the past, present and future of the “Town like Silk and Velvet…Obviously a competent team was at work here!”

A representative of a local organisation for disabled persons observed that the audio guide was an opportunity for the museum to be more accessible to the local disabled population:

“It is now possible to recommend that our visually impaired members visit the museum as individual visitors because all the impressions are audibly well-communicated…Deaf persons as individual visitors also profit from the new technology because they can access the guide text themselves.”

The opportunities and challenges of digital vs personal guided tours

The digital guided tour is an opportunity for HdS because it presents a way for visitors to be able to experience the museum without having to be led around by a volunteer. This means that more visitors at different times can experience the museum, for example, at times when there are only one or two volunteers working. It is also available in German and in English, opening the museum to more international visitors. Yet irrespective of all the advantages of the new apps, those who tested the apps (and the digital tour) unanimously stated: “A digital guided tour is one thing, a guided tour with a weaver, point paper designer and “Schwadroneur”  – as one of the guides calls himself – is quite another”. Such a personal and individual impression is very difficult to replace, whatever technology is used.

Test the Mingei apps at the Haus der SeidenkultuurNow we are interested to hear your opinion. Why not visit the museum and experience our new apps for yourself! For those further afield, you can explore more about the Mingei protocol used in the digitisation and representation of the craft of silk making in Krefeld and the objects and processes digitised on the Mingei Open Platform.

Scroll below local press excerpts about the new apps.

In the Mingei project, a key area of our impact work has been to focus on organisational impact experienced by our heritage crafts partners and technology partners alike. For a forward-reaching project in the digitisation and digital representation of heritage crafts, we can think of organisational impact as digital transformation. 

In the heritage sector, digital transformation has been a buzzword now for many years. In parallel with attempts to define digital transformation, like the definition developed by Europeana relating to the discoverability of heritage collections, we have seen more and more practical tools and targeted guidance emerge that aim to conceptualise, push forward and measure digital transformation. Yet there are few overviews of what was out there and what is designed for whom and when. 

To push forward our thinking on organisational impact in Mingei we conducted a snapshot review of what’s out there at the moment. We hope that this analysis will help to stimulate even more thinking about organisational impact and digital transformation, long after Mingei finishes in May 2022.

On 10 March 2022, as part of the international Mingei Day, we held an online seminar with invited experts from the Mingei project and peer organisations and projects, including the Europeana/Connecting Europe Facility project CRAFTED. The Mingei Platform was presented in the form of four short demonstrations that bookended four themed discussions. This article sets out the main themes discussed.

‘[Why do we preserve heritage?] …not only to protect… [but] to learn from the past and improve the future’. Marinos Ioannides (UNESCO chair of Digital Cultural Heritage at Cyprus University of Technology)

Mingei was set up to meet the challenge of digitising and representing crafts and should be seen in the context of a network of peers and experts in Europe (and of course, further afield) who are employing digital technologies – from motion tracking to geo-tagging – and ontologies to meaningfully share the ‘recipes’ of crafting processes and the stories that explain its social and historical significance, as described by Mingei project coordinator, Xenophon Zabulis (FORTH, Mingei) and Mingei Platform developer Carlo Meghini (CNR-ISTI, Mingei).

Eirini Kaldeli (NTUA, CRAFTED project) invoked the challenge of representing different types of crafts heritage and the knowledge and know-how that must be included to meaningfully represent this heritage digitally. She connected this to the standards required by the Europeana Data Model (EDM) while describing activities designed to strengthen existing ontologies (vocabularies) that explore and standardise the many existing crafts terminologies. Also reinforced was the need for collaborative learning in this area, to which the seminar was a contribution in this vein. 

Putting narrative at the centre of crafts representation

The Mingei project takes an innovative step in crafts preservation by putting narrative at the centre. It established a channel between the human and the digital assets through the formal representation of the stories and the meaningful management of the heritage data. This represents a significant change, according to Carlo Meghini, and reinforced by Marinos Ioannides (UNESCO Chair Digital Cultural Heritage, Cyprus University of Technology). He stated that the greatest challenge faced by those working in digital heritage crafts preservation is not only the digitisation of the tangible or intangible but both together with the memories that give this meaning, in a way that allows these memories to be understood by all audiences and so that anyone can learn from them.

There are challenges, however, to the EDM (to which Europe’s digitised heritage available on Europeana must conform to). Xenophon Zabulis argued that it does not yet adequately allow for the capture of diverse narratives and the representation of all of the vocabulary used and captured in Mingei and other projects. It also lacks the presentation of events. In the past, as Carlo Meghini explained, the data were not there to tell extensive crafts stories (often not in catalogues or even formally documented). Capturing stories provides richer representations but it also poses ongoing technical questions (many of which are now being addressed). Eirini Kaldeli explained that this need has been identified by the CRAFTED project and new formats (e.g. galleries) help to explore the narratives behind the crafts. 

‘…the craft is alive only if someone performs the craft’. Arnaud Dubois

Even with the most advanced digitisation and representation of heritage crafts loses the essence of the craft without performativity, according to Arnaud Dubois (CNAM, Mingei). While there is some fear that ‘digital’ might replace crafts practices (which Arnaud explained came from a confusion in some instances between digitisation and automation or robotisation), craftspeople nonetheless acknowledge the need for heritage digitisation for preservation and to gain a wider audience. Eirini Kaldeli suggested that organising hands-on workshops alongside digitisation efforts is key to creating impact for wider audiences, because, as Nikolaos Partarakis (FORTH) explained, there is no way (yet) to digitally transmit the pain, effort and feeling of craft practices. Digital knowledge cannot replace the practices needed to perfect the craft, but without preserving this knowledge, we might lose opportunities to train future generations. 

What about artificial intelligence?

Marinos Ioannides asked the panel the question of what artificial intelligence (AI) can be used for. Machine learning has pushed forward advances in crafts representation and preservation and, for example, in automating annotation. This technology can help those searching for knowledge find and filter appropriate knowledge sources. Eirini Kaldeli introduced the ‘human in the loop’ concept, which is the fruitful combination of human and artificial intelligence. Human intelligence can strengthen the results of AI algorithms and further train them, and AI can automate mundane tasks. Humans can annotate data and produce domain-relevant training data, further advancing AI. Carlo Meghini noted that AI can help with more error-prone human tasks, but that the definition of intelligence remains a question. Arnaud Dubois noted that AI brings new ways to document complex knowledge, but that this benefits from multidisciplinary (human) approaches to the complexity of human experience. Marinos Ioannides then reflected on the use of AI to support humans in managing complexity but that we shouldn’t forget the unlimited boundaries of human learning and the human drive for preservation.  

The application of the Mingei protocol is also generic enough to be applied to other heritage contexts and in different disciplines, and the protocol guides those responsible for preservation to extract narratives from individual objects to uncover and present additional knowledge relating to both tangible and intangible elements. The Mingei protocol defines what is expected by all scientists involved in the documentation process, supporting much-needed multidisciplinary collaboration. 

It is still not possible to express or replicate the interaction of the craftspeople with their material because this changes in every instance and stage of the process of the craft. Yet what can be expressed is the need to emphasise performativity, the recreation of relationships between people and matter, as well as to acknowledge that there are some elements of the process of the craft that cannot be understood or captured. 

Conclusions

Learning from ancient history and philosophy, the seminar shared insights into the key questions and state of the art in digital heritage crafts preservation. Raising questions of the purpose and limitations of artificial intelligence and technological advancement, Mingei pushes forward the opportunities of digital heritage crafts preservation by reinforcing the role of the human story, of the narrative, in these processes, of balance and respect for craft as it is protected and preserved for future generations. Watch the full seminar below or on Vimeo!

This is the second blog of a series dedicated to how Team-Based Inquiry (TBI) is being used in the Mingei project and what we are learning from it. In Mingei, each heritage partner and Waag have completed several TBI cycles, setting out a different research question, collecting and analysing the data, and implementing improvements each time. Each TBI cycle has examined different topics and led to new insights. Having introduced TBI already, we now explore some of the insights generated and what this means for organisational impact, as well as setting out recommendations to help you use TBI in your work. 

Using TBI to improve the museum visitor experience

The Mingei partners at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM) wanted to know why, of the many exhibitions that are part of the materials gallery (one of seven thematic galleries in the museum), the glass exhibitions were attracting so few visitors and how they could focus the visiting public’s attention more on the materials gallery. The question stemmed from the perception that the Mingei project’s focus on the digitisation of the intangible aspects of the craft of glassmaking would help to bring in more visitors, but that the layout of the museum itself, or something else, might be getting in the way.

They collected data through a series of interviews with mediators and demonstrators from the museum’s Public Department. These professionals had in-depth and direct knowledge about the visitors’ experiences that they could share. They also organised a visit with the person in the museum tasked with making changes to the museum layout. The data they collected led to practical changes being proposed: for example, a plan for renovating the flooring, improving audio-guide systems, and adding labelling and signals around the gallery. 

Asking TBI questions to help improve the visitor experience with museum digital applications

The Chios Mastic Museum investigated how instructions for three newly-installed digital applications could be improved for museum visitors. The TBI cycle was launched at the same time as these installations were being formally evaluated. One of the biggest challenges was how not to over-survey the audience. It was agreed to conduct the TBI survey once the preliminary evaluation data had been collected. Gathering data through three sessions of staff observation and surveys of museum visitors, they identified a number of areas where they could improve the instructions for the applications, including, for example, guidance on where to stand to activate a certain type of app. They also identified a clear need for museum professionals to remain on hand to answer questions and to guide visitors in how to use the apps. This is important, as it was observed that visitors often do not spend much time trying to learn how an app works. 

Colleagues at the Chios Mastic Museum also asked the question of ‘To what extent do the museum professionals understand how the digital applications work, feel comfortable using them and can explain their use to visitors and new colleagues?’. Danae Kaplanidi, scientific consultant at the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP), reports on what they learned in a special blog post where she identifies that the question addresses a gap in the existing research literature, as well as helping the museum better train and supports its professionals in the use and demonstration of digital applications in the museum exhibition setting. 

Using TBI to harness good practice in communications and dissemination more effective

While Waag colleagues are coaching the heritage partners through the TBI cycles, we also undertook our own TBI cycles. Finding ourselves at a critical point in the project – our need to create impact through dissemination and communication – we dedicated ourselves to precisely that topic. We asked the question: what makes impactful and effective communication and dissemination in EU-funded projects?

We found eight problems with the current state of play with European funding projects communications, dissemination and exploitation, ranging from the short-term nature of project funding to project outputs (e.g. reports) not being designed appropriately for their audiences. We identified three solutions: 

• Know your target audience: talk to and with them
• Tell open, impactful, people-centred stories with substance 
• Plan long-term project legacy in a practical way

Each solution is presented alongside a series of tips and recommendations. You can read these in more detail in our blogs exploring what makes impactful communications and dissemination and how to measure the impact of communications, dissemination and exploitation in EU-funded projects. The findings are being widely shared across project and partner communication channels as well as on those channels where the original survey was published. 

Turning a challenge into an opportunity in data collection 

Data collection is an inevitable part of a TBI cycle, but what happens if you haven’t collected data from your audiences before? 

This was one challenge for the Haus der Seidencultur (HdS). Run entirely by volunteers, all of whom are retired, the museum lacks many of the resources other museums might enjoy. They asked the question of how to improve the experience of the non-guided museum visitor experience. Since re-opening after the first Covid lockdowns, they had been trying to informally collect more feedback from visitors, benefitting from the thoughts shared in the visitor book as well as the great personal connections made by guides with tour groups. Everything that was shared, however informally, was fed into the TBI cycle. The findings led the team to propose to capture and share more information about each museum exhibit with guests by creating QR codes as part of the Mingei pilot installation.

What was the organisational and professional impact of the Mingei TBI cycles? 

As a method of generating new knowledge and creating practical improvements, the TBI cycle has been a great asset in the Mingei project. We found three relevant themes that emerged as a result of the TBI cycles, no matter how different the context of the other heritage partners might be. 

The first was around informal data collection opportunities. The second was on the security of the digital devices that are being used in the exhibition pilots in the three museums. How can a museum ensure that its technology remains safely in place while creating the best and most enjoyable experience for visitors? The third was around how to train museum professionals on how to use the applications and new digital technologies. 

In addition to these very positive shared learnings, we can summarise some of the outcomes that have resulted from the Mingei TBI cycles as follows: 

• Attracting new users and those interested in heritage craft.
• Improved communication within the museum settings.
• Improved communication in the Mingei project setting.
• Potential future impact as a result of the wider awareness of the Mingei project’s developed resources.
• Better communications, dissemination and exploitation planning and delivery in future projects.
• New solutions to tricky problems (because the TBI cycles are a new tool in the professionals’ ‘toolbox’).
• Improved user experience for museum visitors using the digital applications and exploring the museum setting.

How can we improve the use and impact of TBI cycles in processes of digital transformation? 

‘The whole TBI process was not a procedure that we had implemented before. Nevertheless, it proved to be very useful when it comes to providing answers in a participative – bottom up approach and it has helped us in defining improvements in our decision making processes.’ heritage partner feedback

The cyclical and iterative nature of TBI, as well as its focus on answering the research question as a team, makes it suitable in a context of proactive partnership and skills development in processes of digital transformation, where the focus is not only on the results but the impact created through the process. TBI is a tool that can answer, in a simple way, much bigger questions relating to key stakeholders and key questions facing heritage crafts organisations in the contemporary, digital, context.

Tips and recommendations for the effective use of the TBI methodology 

• – Present clear instructions and an overview of the process from the beginning for all involved. 
• – Get people involved who have the agency to implement the changes that will be recommended through the TBI cycle.
• – Involve as many colleagues as possible in the introduction to and delivery of TBI cycles, so that everyone feels comfortable to take part. 
• – Start small and progress to bigger questions over time. 
• – Keep it lean and light-touch (this is a key attribute of the TBI cycle over other processes). 

Read more about team-based inquiry in the Mingei Hands-on Guide!

Team-Based Inquiry is a light-touch evaluation and research methodology specifically for teams that produce audience-facing and/or informal learning products. In this first of three articles about Team-Based Inquiry, we introduce the methodology and how we are using it in Mingei. In our follow-up article, we share what the heritage partners and Waag have learned from the process, and, in the final article, we’ll evaluate its use in the project and set out recommendations for others who wish to use it as a learning and impact methodology. 

The background to Team-Based Inquiry 

Team-Based Inquiry (TBI) has been around for more than a decade. It was created by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), who have also produced a guide for museum educators on how to use the methodology. Much of how we apply the methodology in Mingei has been drawn from this guide, though we have also adapted it for our own use and published our own guide to support the use of TBI in heritage crafts contexts. 

TBI can be used for research and evaluation and improving processes and outputs in a focussed, low risk, light-touch, iterative and team-based setting. We decided to use TBI in Mingei in order to facilitate organisational learning and to give heritage partners control over the process of making impact for themselves (in terms of their digital transformation and involvement in the project) and for their audiences, the ultimate beneficiaries of their participation in the project. One of the key assets of the methodology is that it was designed to be light-touch and effective in bringing about tangible improvements, which is important if you’re already involved in a busy schedule of building apps and exhibitions, as is the case for the partners in Mingei.  

An overview to TBI: Question, Investigate, Analyse, Improve

As a method for evaluation and improvement, TBI makes use of a cycle of inquiry. This cycle of inquiry consists of four stages: Question, Investigate, Reflect, and Improve. 

Moving through these stages is a team effort. Some stages could be carried out by a smaller number of people; for other stages all team members should be involved. For digital heritage projects like Mingei, it’s great also to have technology partners involved where possible. TBI cycles can be conducted at any point in a project cycle but you should remember that the goal is to find actionable improvements. Be ready to make some changes!

We go through the four steps below, but encourage you to download the full guide (below) to find out more detail about the methodology.

1. Identify your question

We recommend kicking off by brainstorming around this prompt: What piece of information will really help us improve (the impact of) our project? If you can answer this, formulate a question that can help you find this information. According to NISE Net, your question should have at least three qualities: 

• You don’t know the answer
• It focuses on actionable and useful information
• It can be realistically investigated in the time and with the resources available

Once you have identified your question, it’s now time to get the data that could help you answer it. 

2. Investigate: find the answer to your question

As we already mentioned, TBI is a light-touch methodology. You might already have the data you need or you might be able to collect it in a very easy way. You should think about how much information (your sample) you need to collect to be able to answer your question. You should also think about the ethics of collecting this information and how to treat the data, and the participants from whom you collect the data, legally, ethically and respectfully. 

3. Reflect: analyse your information to answer your question

There are three steps to this stage: organise your data so that it’s easy to analyse, analyse the data for what they tell you about the research question, and interpret the patterns you have found in terms of what this means for your research question. You should also ask yourself: did you find anything unexpected, or did you find everything you thought you would? 

4. Improve

This is the point at which you should draw out some recommended improvements for your project. You might have to plan how to implement them as well as communicate the recommended improvements to your colleagues. 

Remember, you don’t need to make big changes to have a big impact. The beauty of TBI, as we’ve seen it in Mingei, is where some small changes can be made to really improve the experience of audiences using the digital applications in the exhibitions. 

How we use TBI in Mingei

In Mingei, each heritage partner has led between two to three TBI cycles. Each TBI cycle has taken on different topics, including how to find and work with volunteers; how to improve the experience of non-guided visitors to exhibitions; how to understand the levels of interest of museum visitors; and how to understand visitor movements in the museum. The Waag Mingei team has also conducted its own TBI cycle focussing on impactful and effective project communications and dissemination. 

Every three weeks, the three heritage partners, technology partners and Waag have met to discuss broader developments in the pilot exhibitions and to discuss and share what they have been learning in their TBI cycle. This moment of sharing what has been learned is like action research, even though this was not an original objective. We learned that however different the partners are, what they are learning is relevant to everyone. We share more about this in our next blog!

Read more about Team-Based Inquiry in our Hands-on Guide!

We asked FORTH’s Xenophon Zabulis what was learned through this extensive programme of consultation with makers and what it means for the future impact of the project and engagement with heritage crafts communities.

WHAT WAS LEARNED THROUGH THIS PROCESS OF CONSULTATION?

The consultation informed the methodology of the Mingei protocol and our wider approach to the digital representation of heritage crafts. We approached makers to ensure that we understood, directly from their perspective, what they are talking about and the issues that are important to them. We wanted to ensure that the digital medium would not deprive them of expression and that it would ensure ownership. Only then could we proceed to discuss the potential impact of the digital representation of heritage crafts, such as new materials and hybrid art.

HOW DID IT INFLUENCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MINGEI PROTOCOL?

The consultation helped us by placing emphasis on several activities. Firstly, by doing preliminary research with secondary resources to know the topic better before you meet the practitioners, including at least the local history of the place and the community to visit. Secondly, focus on getting a perspective not easily found in the literature. Thirdly, digitising everything and editing later. Finally, previewing digitisation assets on the spot with practitioners and asking their opinion on what is important to show.

HOW DID IT CHANGE HOW TECHNICAL PARTNERS MIGHT WORK WITH THESE COMMUNITIES IN FUTURE?

The need for data that more closely represents the sensations and ideas that the practitioner uses is strengthened. Technically, it means that we need to measure force, chemistry and time to reflect the physics of processes, in light of new materials and sustainability considerations. But it also includes the task of gaining a better theoretical understanding of how the mind negotiates with matter in making useful and beautiful things.

WAS IT A VALUABLE EXPERIENCE?

For me, yes and I hope the same applies to everyone that worked on the project. Community knowledge was served by Open Access in all project publications. European Commission resources were increased, enhanced, and valorised through investment in Mingei. We hope that through the Mingei Handbook on Heritage Craft representation and preservation we will trigger further research on this matter.

WHAT WERE YOUR EXPECTATIONS, AND WERE THESE MET?

Not all expectations were met. We would need more time to ask all the questions that we want to, but we are using this to inform our aspirations for future research.

WHAT WERE THE CREATIVES’ EXPECTATIONS OF THE MINGEI PROTOCOL?

To be remembered, first. To make income, second.

Find out more about the creatives that helped to inform the development of the Mingei Protocol by clicking on the links below.

• In the Spotlight: The Artist Ioannis Stathoyiannis – Mingei
• In the Spotlight: local Industry “Handmade Cretan Woven” – Mingei
• In the Spotlight: Nikolaos Fasoulas, a traditional shoemaker from the mountainous village Anogeia – Mingei 
• In the Spotlight: Women weavers from “Aretousa” Workshop
• In the Spotlight: weaving experts from CRETACOM – Mingei
• In the Spotlight: woodworker Nikos Manias – Mingei
• In the Spotlight: glassblower Thibaut Nussbaumer
• In the Spotlight: Limerick Lace
• In the Spotlight: artist Eirini Linardaki – Mingei
• In the Spotlight: ceramist Stelios Stamatis – Mingei
• In the Spotlight: The pottery experience at Keramion – Mingei

Participating in the Mingei project led to the Chios Mastic Museum in Greece installing advanced applications that preserve and present the tangible and intangible elements of the heritage craft of mastic production. At the same time, these applications are designed to trial new and exciting ways to learn more about crafts through digital applications. Chios Mastic Museum asked itself: how can we ensure a positive experience for our museum professionals who demonstrate this advanced technology to visitors? Meeting a gap in existing research, this case study reports on what was learned for the benefit of other museums that consider installing digital applications. 

About the Chios Mastic Museum

The Chios Mastic Museum is built in the Mastichohoria (mastic villages), a rural area in the south of the island of Chios. The museum replicates a mastic factory and consists of indoor and outdoor areas, including a mastic field. It is staffed by museum professionals and volunteers from the island. A typical day for the professionals responsible for the exhibition areas includes the opening of the exhibition (e.g. lights, audio-visual installations), keeping an eye on different exhibition areas, offering guided tours to groups and schools, and closing at the end of the day. 

About the mastic digital applications

Three applications were created and installed during the Mingei project, and each application had to be introduced to and internalised by the museum professionals. 

1. Airborne, developed by FORTH, is an immersive flight simulator allowing users to fly over various mastic villages of Chios. During the flyover, users can stop at each village and retrieve multimedia and text information related to those villages. The setup is very straightforward: it involves a desktop computer. 
2. Mastic Narratives, also developed by FORTH, is made up of four tablet devices located in four main spots of the museum. From each tablet, a specific area of the museum is covered and augmented through the camera of the tablet with ‘hotspots’. At each hotspot, a Virtual Human (VH) appears who is the digital twin of someone who used to work in that part of the factory. When the hotspot is selected the VH can be seen through the camera of the tablet narrating their life story and work at the factory. 
3. ARMINES developed Craft Training which demonstrates mastic cultivation activities through a more immersive experience. The installation consists of a personal computer and a monitor together with a depth sensor for tracking the user’s actions. The user stands in front of the installation and follows the instructions to mimic craft actions.

Researching the experience of museum professionals with digital applications 

We decided to research the experience of the museum professionals related to the digital applications recently installed in the museum through one of the Mingei Team-Based Inquiry cycles in March 2022. 

We investigated a number of different areas relating to the museum staff’s experience of the advanced digital applications described above, including their:

• understanding of how the applications work
• opinion about this addition to their everyday tasks
• comfort in using the applications
• thoughts on more efficient ways to implement new digital applications in the exhibition

We conducted a focus group interview with museum professionals working directly with the applications in the exhibition areas. 

What we learned

Experience and comfort in demonstrating using the applications

The results were very interesting and practical. The levels of comfort experienced by the museum professionals while using technology varied. All of them are open to technology but only one of them can be considered an expert and this is understandably the person that everyone turns to when there is a technical problem.

• The digital applications add value to the exhibition because they invite visitors to interact and learn about already existing information in a more playful way. 
• The applications need improvement regarding their technical stability and how their instructions were communicated to the audience. 
• They worry that during the summer they will face problems such as damage to the technical equipment and errors in the software because of overuse. 
• They worry also that they might not explain correctly the context and content of the applications. 
• Concerning their everyday tasks, there was no significant change and they are eager to learn more. 
• They expressed that they understand how the applications work and feel comfortable to transmit this knowledge.

Ideas to help museum professionals feel comfortable with current and future digital applications in future

• Hold a demonstration at the same time as when the applications are installed in the museum.
• Create an accompanying PDF file with user and installation instructions, troubleshooting information and a contact in case of emergency, cleaning requirements, a break-down of daily tasks, and background information on the context, content and development of the application.

Next steps

Getting to know the perspective of what museum professionals feel about digital applications is an under-researched topic in an era where, especially after COVID-19, digital transformation is a pressing matter. The museum professionals of the Chios Mastic Museum are not software developers but are nonetheless intimately involved in the concept development of the applications, because they have the experience of interacting directly with the audience and knowing more about their reactions and needs. We wished to research their perspective to make it easier for them to work with advanced digital applications. Looking strategically forward, we will take into account more often museum professionals’ perspectives as a source of insight on how to create effective digital activities that meet the audience’s expectations.