First international conference on “cultural engineering and heritage development”
The first edition of the international conference on “cultural engineering and heritage development” will take place on December 4 and 5, 2024 in Rabat. It will be placed under the theme “Cultural and creative industries in Africa and the Arab world”.
Approaching the cultural and creative industries in the African and Arab contexts as well as their evolution in the light of postmodernism, an era focused on knowledge, the intangible and the digital, such is the objective of the first edition of the international conference on “cultural engineering and heritage development”, scheduled for December 4 and 5, 2024 in Rabat. Organized by the School of Information Sciences (ESI) of Rabat, in partnership with UNESCO, the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research, and the Arab Federation of Libraries and Information, this major event will be placed under the theme “Cultural and creative industries (CCI) in Africa and the Arab world”. It brings together researchers, experts and professionals in the field of ICC.
It indeed constitutes an international platform for debate, exchange and interdisciplinary reflection. “If the heart of the ICC remains the works, artistic expressions, cultural heritage and traditional know-how, the models of production and reproduction of art and culture have continued to reinvent themselves, as elsewhere those of creation. Also, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the axes of this first edition of the conference mainly question the complexity of ICCs in Africa and the Arab world, their specificities and the problems that their development generates,” explain the organizers.
And to indicate that “the ICC sectors have diversified as well as their structures, thereby introducing new players into the field of culture and art and giving rise to new societal issues. Between a public museum, a private gallery, a production company and a digital platform, the difficult equation of culture as a common good and its industrialization and commodification plays out.
While noting that the actors of the ICC today are “countless”: firstly those who operate in the sectors of creation, production, diffusion/distribution and marketing of goods, services and activities with a cultural, artistic dimension and heritage; then the regulatory actors public institutions, national and international associations, non-governmental organizations, federations, whose mission is to regulate this sector of activity, to support its development and to look into the challenges and problems it gives rise to .
Also with the professionalization of ICCs, those involved in training and research today constitute a key player in the construction and development of its sectors.
In this context, the four major axes of the conference address the complexities of ICC in Africa and the Arab world, their specificities as well as the issues resulting from the development of these industries. The conference program will include scientific communications selected by the scientific committee.
