08 April 2013

The CHIEF Award experience: Angela Rossmaier

Angela Rossmaier, the winner of the last CHIEF Award

Angela Rossmaier won the CHIEF Award in the last forum’s topic Citizen Cultural Participation. 

She is a former EuroMACHS student and is now a Heritage Consultant and Heritage Project Design. Angela was invited to present her idea in Brighton, during the CreativeCH Workshop, that gathered several experts in the field of Heritage, Creativity and New Technologies.

Angela, can you describe briefly your idea, which won the award?

Basically the driving idea in conceiving the projects was the creative potential that is enclosed in cultural heritage. Living in the time of virtual museums and archives the availability of images and content to trigger new creative combinations and hybrid projects seem sheer endless.
In a joint project between the City Archive of Regensburg/Germany and the University of Graz/Austria the realization of a digital Archive for the Portrait Books of Regensburg was started as part of the EuroMACHs study program.

Building on this I conceived four scenarios for the community of Regensburg to extend local activities and support the experience economy, be it tourism, craftsmanship or the arts. The project is called "History reloaded - Regensburg´s Citizen Participation Project". 
It is a collaborative activity between citizens, kids, craftsmen, shop owners a.m. from Regensburg and tourists, official agencies and experts of the fields concerned. A final release event would vote on the best tasks, teams and results. The ultimate goal of the project is to strengthen local identity, promote the creative industry and the tourism economy.
The four scenarios were presented at the Citizen Cultural Participation CreativeCH Workshop within the framework of the VAST 2012 conference in Brighton.

How would you describe your experience of going to the CreativeCH Workshop, in Brighton?

In the workshop representatives from different countries presented a special Cultural Participation Project of a community. The projects showed that each had a very distinct and different approach to the matter of cultural heritage; this definitely was an important experience to make better use of and improve my future projects. The general willingness of publics to support local community issues in regards to regional heritage confirmed my opinion that people love to communicate, share and contribute, it just has to be in the range of some of their personal experiences of the presence or the past. 

Was this award an important step in your career? Why?

Yes, because I started to reach out to official agencies, networks and corporations, like the Europeana and the DDB (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek), those are contacts I hope to strengthen even more, once I finished my present activity.

What would you say to the persons who are thinking in participating in the next award? Should they do it?

No doubt, it´s a wonderful experience.  All the people are friendly and interesting to talk to, it is actually an honor to address them in such a laid-back atmosphere. You learn a lot in listening to the contributions and lectures of the group members, especially if you take part in the whole VAST-conference. And besides all England is another reward in this endeavor.

Apply for the next CHIEF Award, you can win the chance to present your idea at the next CreativeCH workshops at Fira Modernista, Terrassa (Spain) or EVAFlorence 2013, Florence (Italy)!

You can find all the info here. The deadline to submit your idea is April, 19th.