Geoff Steven, the Director of OUR PLACE, writes about why he believes that Photography and World Heritage can be combined to help with global understanding.
OUR PLACE AND OUR HERITAGE - a global opportunity for positive change
At the beginning of this new century, more and more people are realizing that we are living on a very fragile planet and the life-styles and values that we so easily take for granted are not guaranteed and can relatively easily be lost or destroyed.
Major environmental [and now financial] challenges face us and geopolitical tensions are on the rise as competing world views struggle for recognition and acceptance.
In some societies traditional values and customs are facing major pressures and are being swamped by an increasingly homogenous world culture, often accelerated by growing global tourism and mass media communication channels.
These changes can bring many tangible material benefits to a society, but often not without a corresponding social, environmental, and cultural cost. Change can be seen as destabilizing and threatening.
In the developed world, which has also recently gone through its own huge societal changes, more and more people are looking for a seemingly lost stability and identity that can help give them a sense of place and historical continuum. The post war “baby boom” generation is now reaching middle age and many in this large group are seeking to re-establish their roots to the history and culture which they readily rejected during the last decades of the 20th Century.
In all societies we seem to have an ever increasing need to have our collective histories and heritage recognised and celebrated. We want to know who we are and where we have come from. We are proud to share it with others. We also want it to be respected.
We realise that retaining this knowledge of our individual, national, and universal heritage, is essential if we want to get a perspective on where we are heading in our societies. It helps us recognize and identify what is precious to carry forward with us from our past. Who we are, is anchored in where we have come from, both nationally and universally.
Helping address this human need for a historical identity is one of the more intangible but important benefits we, as citizens of this planet, get from embracing the concept of the UNESCO World Heritage List. The sites inscribed on this List are recognised as having “outstanding universal value”. They are chosen by the World Heritage Committee which consists of twenty one State Parties elected to represent the 185 countries that have signed the World Heritage Convention. The acknowledged sites cross all geopolitical, regional, ethnic, religious, racial and geographical boundaries. The 911 sites currently on the UNESCO World Heritage List are distributed throughout the world.
These sites represent physical landscapes and cultural icons that can have meaning to all of us. Some are well know internationally, others are only initially recognized by their local communities, but importantly, they all represent our place on our planet – our shared human legacy.
By being awarded UNESCO World Heritage inscription, their recognition gives all of us a tangible and direct link to the history and geography of our planet and a unique introduction to the diverse cultures of our fellow global citizens. Collectively these World Heritage sites create a testimony of our shared identity as inhabitants of planet Earth.
These are not just places of universal significance for their architectural or geographical uniqueness. They are the repositories of our diverse cultural stories and our joined histories. They are places that transcend time and give us that necessary link to our collective past – they help articulate some of the great and significant achievements of the human race, and celebrate many of the outstanding and important geographical features of this planet which we all inhabit.
If we are more aware about our shared heritage we can begin to acknowledge and understand our own place and the place that others have in mankind’s fascinating history. We can begin to accept that we have so much in common with our fellow global citizens. We can recognise the importance of preserving our own distinct cultural identities and accept the need of others to do likewise.
Inscription of a site by onto the World Heritage List is a beneficial recognition by the international community and can help with a sites protection and encourage steps towards its conservation and preservation. We all have the responsibility for protecting these sites wherever they are located.
Making people more aware of the sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List and of their global significance and importance is the next step. Unfamiliar cultures and locations can begin to be seen not as threats, but as unique entrées to help understand the worlds of our fellow global citizens.
We at OUR PLACE believe that documenting and promoting the world’s heritage through striking original photographs is a powerful way to spread the story of this fantastic global legacy. Strong and effective photographic images cross cultural boundaries more readily than words and can be widely disseminated with ease.
Our photographers endeavor to document the site as both a geographical entity as well as a place that has importance to its local and the wider international communities. We want to capture images of people in these special places, as this human inter-relationship is the key to a sites’ ultimate universal significance. Good photographs can capture and show this emotional relevance of a site, as well as illustrating its physical aspects. Our collection of images therefore creates an impressionistic portrait of a location which the general viewer can empathise and identify with. When people build an emotional bond with a place they can more easily understand and accept its value and significance to others.
Sites are inscribed on the World Heritage list because their value is considered to go beyond national boundaries, and this universality is the unique opportunity that these places create for enhancing global unity and understanding.
Together, if we confidently promote the world’s heritage as our collective legacy, then these representative and important examples of the world’s cultural diversity and unique geographical environments will increasingly be recognised as a unifying heritage that belongs to us all. They can be seen as symbols of a united world, not just as important locations of relevance to individual nation states and cultures.
The world’s heritage is held in all of our hands. With all our differences of geography, history and culture, we are still inhabitants of one world at this one time – together we should celebrate and confidently share “our place on our planet”.
Geoff Steven
DIRECTOR,
OUR PLACE – The World Heritage |
