Fragile Cultural Landscapes: A Regenerating Case Study in East Veneto

Abstract

The paper reflects on the case study of a reclamation landscape in the East Veneto region (Italy), framing it in the European strategies and policy about landscape and heritage: it will be taken into account what has till now been done by local government, first of all by the “Osservatorio del paesaggio del Veneto Orientale” respecting the European Landscape Convention guidelines, then the paper will point out both sustainable innovation and potentialities of this fragile territory. Further the paper will try to outline the digital infrastructures’ communication abilities in sharing knowledge, connecting them to main questions about preserving and promoting landscape and scattered heritage, again keeping in the background the European policies, mostly about digitalization. As regards the relationship between landscapes and heritage, it will be paid specific attention both on the called “Top-down” actions and on knowing and giving values from below, from “Bottom-up” practices. In fact, the two strategies are complementary, because the first—Presentation—regards the careful goal of informing and making heritage available in a way normally carried out by scholars, professionals and more in general experts in the heritage field. The second strategy, better known as Interpretation, refers on the other hand, to research and creativity activities and results generated in a heritage site. In such perspective, involving visitors as well local people and communities is crucial for interpreting and changing sites as cultural landscapes, into places where legacies of the past can turn to a resource for the future. Referring in a specific way to those last processes, as they are more innovative, the paper will illustrate, like an example useful to be applied, the recent experience of “Alpinescapes” web-platform, implemented to collect and share information about the cultural landscape between Lario and Ceresio lakes, and lastly, to map and merge Digital Cultural Heritage data from Italian and Swiss territories.