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CORDIS

Fostering Intangible Bonds: Resilience, Environment and Society

Project description

Keeping Europe’s fibre heritage alive

Natural fibres such as flax, hemp, wool and silk preserve generations of craft skills, rituals and ecological knowledge. The EU-funded FIBRES project explores how fibre-based intangible cultural heritage can strengthen Europe’s cultural resilience while supporting sustainability, community identity and livelihoods. Through ethnographic research across five European regions, it will compare practices, intergenerational learning and sustainable production models. The findings will inform ways to document and share knowledge in museums, archives and schools, including a participatory living archive. The project will develop a cultural resilience toolkit, planning approaches and co-designed artefacts. By connecting crafts with sustainability goals, it aims to help communities and policymakers use living heritage to build more inclusive and resilient futures.

Objective

The project explores how intangible cultural heritage (ICH) rooted in natural fibres can strengthen cultural resilience, encompassing ecological, social and economic dimensions, in Europe. Flax, hemp, wool, and silk embody centuries of knowledge, carrying gestures, rituals, narratives, and environmental practices that connect cultural continuity with care for the environment. In times of climate change, ecological fragility and social fragmentation, these traditions offer valuable lessons and practical resources for adaptation and preparedness. The project analyses fibre-related ICH as both practical knowledge and symbolic repertoire. It examines practices, craft skills and sustainable production models, together with oral traditions, songs and rituals that transmit ecological wisdom and reinforce community identity. Through multi-sited ethnography across five European regions, it will map and compare diverse practices, highlighting how they sustain livelihoods, gendered expertise, intergenerational learning and local autonomy. Building on this knowledge, the project will co-create innovative methods for documenting, exhibiting and transmitting ICH in museums, archives and schools, including a participatory Living Archive. It will design a Cultural Resilience Toolkit, develop new planning approaches for institutions and communities, and pilot co-designed artefacts that link heritage to sustainable, locally grounded and globally resonant innovation. By integrating cultural, ecological, social and economic perspectives, the project will provide policymakers with a multidimensional evidence base on ICH as a cultural and environmental resource. Its outcomes include new frameworks, methodologies, prototypes and policy recommendations that bridge traditional craft with contemporary sustainability agendas. In doing so, the project positions fibre-based ICH not as a nostalgic remnant but as an active infrastructure for more inclusive, regenerative and resilient futures.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL2-2025-02-TWO-STAGE

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Net EU contribution
€ 711 361,21
Address
DORSODURO 3246
30123 Venezia
Italy
Region
Nord-Est Veneto Venezia
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (9)

Partners (9)