Our main objective was to create new tools for art educators, for working with heritage topics, for using digital technologies, and for leading a transformative learning process. As the concrete result we wanted to create a digital toolkit that highlights various aspects of these three overlapping working areas, and models ways of working with intangible cultural heritage in a communal art setting. In creating the digital toolkit, we wanted to explore the use of the latest video recording and viewing equipment in order to provide the educators with new competences, to make the content for the digital toolkit as engaging as possible, and to digitalise elements of intangible cultural heritage for posterity. Through the pilot group work process, we aimed to develope and test a new way of engaging with cultural heritage through the use of communal art education methods, underpinned by the principles of transformative learning. We also wanted to explore the use and meaning of dialogue within a transformative, art-based learning process.
Our motivation was to safeguard intangible cultural heritage and provide teachers with new skills and opportunities to grow social capital in their own communities, to highlight traditions and to sustain them for individuals and communities. Demographic changes, the need for autonomy and the power of mass media pose a threat to intangible cultural heritage. In many communities, there is a lack of young people who are interested in embracing the traditions of previous generations. Intangible cultural heritage is important for experiences, thoughts, feelings and assumptions about identity, culture and cultural diversity, so that heritage remains alive, vibrant and meaningful. Intangible cultural heritage is also related to the environment, social and economic realities. The partners have noticed, while working with their stakeholders, that people are poorly aware of the traditions and customs of their local environment. They have noted that many rich elements of Cultural Heritage that could really improve inclusion are in danger of disappearing. The art field works with intangible heritage, but the challenge is to transmit knowledge to new generations. For that, we wanted to create new tools.