CIE - Centre for International Heritage Activities

HeritageLab is CIE’s signature initiative, a multidisciplinary and interactive platform that reflects a growing global desire for communities to actively shape how their heritage is represented, interpreted, and connected to others across borders.  It is the creative and hands-on manifestation of the other CIE programs and is a grassroots approach to looking at heritage and community  in the face  of conflict and contestion

 

Co-Labs and Special Projects: Re(Emerging) Pasts

​HeritageLab’s community-driven digital space reimagines how heritage is understood, preserved, and shared. Built around a network of independently managed, community-based Co-Labs and Special Projects, HeritageLab brings together a wide range of voices, disciplines, and cultures together to safeguard and preserve forgotten or deleted pasts in new and imaginative ways.

 

The Universe

The Co-Labs operate independently within the HeritageLab but are digitally connected through the Heritage Universe—a tool that links stories across timelines, geographies, and keywords such as sustainability, boatbuilding, textile making, and healing traditions. Our Universe, communities can connect with others across oceans and historic trade routes, discovering shared themes in both tangible and intangible heritage—from traditional crafts and professions to rituals, songs, and environments.

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Community is not always a space:

HeritageLab also supports communities and networks built around shared intangible and environmental heritage. One example is the Tree Routed project, which collects personal stories that reveal how tree-related heritage connects people across continents and trade routes.
 

A Protected Space for Innovation

HeritageLab is designed to protect community input, data sovereignty, and experimental research—free from the influence of tech giants or rigid institutional hierarchies. Co-Labs can decide what they make available to the general public and/or their community.
 
HeritageLab, always a work in progress,  builds on years of work with heritage communities through CIE field schools in Sri Lanka, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa (Robben Island), and the UAE . With the technical support of FH Münster University of Applied Sciences and our network of emerging computer scientists, HeritageLab was officially launched in 2024.