Date:
Location:
The Tunisia Office of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University invites you to:
"Cultural Democracy and Heritage Democratization in the Old City of Tripoli, Libya"
A lecture by:
Reem Furjani, Researcher in Critical Heritage Studies and Cultural Policies
Reem Furjani is a Libyan researcher in critical heritage studies and cultural policies. She is founder and Director of Scene for Culture and Heritage, Ambassador to ICOMOS General Assembly 2023, Investigator at INHERIT Heritage Resilience Network at Anglia Ruskin University; Co-Founder of the Mediterranean Association for Data Interchange (MADI); and recently appointed as Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS).
Holding a Masters degree in architecture from Cardiff University and a commenced PhD, her interests lie in the intersections between critical sociology and management of culturally significant spaces. Her research work explores communal interpretations of heritage and socially-performative uses of it. In practice, she addresses the development of democratic cultural policies and participative cultural resource mapping and management.
Reem Furjani was Fellow at the American Institute for Maghreb Studies (AIMS) and Member of Steering Committee of the Conference on Libyan Humanities with AIMS and the U.S. Embassy to Libya. Contributing to regional cultural policies, Reem is the Author of Libya’s Country Profile on Cultural Governance for EU’s MedCulture Programme; contributor to the Mediterranean policies recommendations at the Dialogue of the Two Shores in Marseille and to a number of UNESCO and Réseau Euro-Med France policy initiatives; and was a research affiliate at the North African Policy Initiative (NAPI). She engaged as Co-Pilot with the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) mentoring leading cultural organization in the MENA towards sustainability and social impact.
She received the Chevening Scholarship Award for a Fellowship at OCIS attending at the University of Oxford 2022-2023, and the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Opler Grant Award for 2020. She was nominated by the U.S. Embassy for the U.S. Department of State’s International Visiting Leaders Programme (IVLP) and alumna of Goethe’s Kulturakademie. She served as a member of jury and mentor in a number of cultural programmes including Global Hult Prize, and is a former university tutor and Academic Board Member at the American University of Libya.
In this talk, Reem Furjani attempts a practical take on the notion of the ‘democratization of heritage’ by re-thinking the role of the State not as the conventionally authoritative definer of the meanings and values of cultural heritage, but as a mediator that facilitates conflicting interpretations by heterogeneous social groups to be negotiated through an inclusive community-based decision-making process of how heritage can be managed. Reem explores the role of the Old City Tripoli Administration Bureau (OCTAB) in encouraging residents to participate in civil society’s local art activities for social reconciliation and against social fragmentation. Through the paradigm of 'Cultural Democracy', she shows how culture creates occasions for confrontation, conversation, and collaboration in co-defining of heritage.
This event will be held in person. Admission Free.
