European Cultural Heritage Onstage

ECHO was an international project in the field of arts, culture and heritage, with the aims to enhance cultural production and reinforce the European sense of belonging by connecting contemporary artistic creation with Dark Cultural Heritage of local communities in Europe. Dark Heritage was connected to and explored events that traumatise groups and determine their cultural identity. Such events concern societies, as physical and conceptual spaces related to war, genocide, mass killings, ethnic conflict, oppression, violence and death bear such moments in their heritage, tangible and intangible. It was based on the premise that dealing with traumatic heritage has therapeutic effects for locals and outsiders. As war and conflict spaces exist around the whole Europe, dark heritage worked as a starting dialogue point for artists and citizens. ECHO attempted and managed to 1) tighten and promote the link between artistic creation and dark heritage, 2) enable contemporary artistic co-creation based on cultural elements from new, old and future EU member states and 3) capture original images of local communities as a cultural entirety and as part of the European cultural context.