ODEUROPA | ODEUROPA: Negotiating Olfactory and Sensory Experiences in Cultural Heritage Practice and Research

Summary
Our senses are gateways to the past. Although museums are slowly discovering the power of multi-sensory presentations, we lack the scientific standards, tools and data to identify, consolidate, and promote the wide-ranging role of scents and smelling in our cultural heritage. In recent years, European cultural heritage institutions have invested heavily in large-scale digitization. A wealth of object, text and image data that can be analysed using computer science techniques now exists. However, the potential olfactory descriptions, experiences, and memories that they contain remain unexplored. We recognize this as both a challenge and an opportunity. Odeuropa will apply state-of-the-art AI techniques to text and image datasets that span four centuries of European history. It will identify the vocabularies, spaces, events, practices, and emotions associated with smells and smelling. The project will curate this multi-modal information, following semantic web standards, and store the enriched data in a ‘European Olfactory Knowledge Graph’ (EOKG). We will use this data to identify ‘storylines’, informed by cultural history and heritage research, and share these with different audiences in different formats: through demonstrators, an online catalogue, toolkits and training documentation describing best-practices in olfactory museology. New, evidence-based methodologies will quantify the impact of multisensory visitor engagement. This data will support the implementation of policy recommendations for recognising, promoting, presenting and digitally preserving olfactory heritage. These activities will realize Odeuropa’s main goal: to show that smells and smelling are important and viable means for consolidating and promoting Europe’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101004469
Start date: 01-01-2021
End date: 31-12-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 2 807 780,00 Euro - 2 807 780,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Our senses are gateways to the past. Although museums are slowly discovering the power of multi-sensory presentations, we lack the scientific standards, tools and data to identify, consolidate, and promote the wide-ranging role of scents and smelling in our cultural heritage. In recent years, European cultural heritage institutions have invested heavily in large-scale digitization. A wealth of object, text and image data that can be analysed using computer science techniques now exists. However, the potential olfactory descriptions, experiences, and memories that they contain remain unexplored. We recognize this as both a challenge and an opportunity. Odeuropa will apply state-of-the-art AI techniques to text and image datasets that span four centuries of European history. It will identify the vocabularies, spaces, events, practices, and emotions associated with smells and smelling. The project will curate this multi-modal information, following semantic web standards, and store the enriched data in a ‘European Olfactory Knowledge Graph’ (EOKG). We will use this data to identify ‘storylines’, informed by cultural history and heritage research, and share these with different audiences in different formats: through demonstrators, an online catalogue, toolkits and training documentation describing best-practices in olfactory museology. New, evidence-based methodologies will quantify the impact of multisensory visitor engagement. This data will support the implementation of policy recommendations for recognising, promoting, presenting and digitally preserving olfactory heritage. These activities will realize Odeuropa’s main goal: to show that smells and smelling are important and viable means for consolidating and promoting Europe’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

DT-TRANSFORMATIONS-12-2018-2020

Update Date

27-10-2022
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.3. SOCIETAL CHALLENGES
H2020-EU.3.6. SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies
H2020-EU.3.6.2. Innovative societies
H2020-EU.3.6.2.2. Explore new forms of innovation, with special emphasis on social innovation and creativity and understanding how all forms of innovation are developed, succeed or fail
H2020-SC6-TRANSFORMATIONS-2018
DT-TRANSFORMATIONS-12-2018-2020 Curation of digital assets and advanced digitisation
H2020-EU.3.6.3. Reflective societies - cultural heritage and European identity
H2020-EU.3.6.3.1. Study European heritage, memory, identity, integration and cultural interaction and translation, including its representations in cultural and scientific collections, archives and museums, to better inform and understand the present by richer interpretations of the past
H2020-SC6-TRANSFORMATIONS-2018
DT-TRANSFORMATIONS-12-2018-2020 Curation of digital assets and advanced digitisation