SEPTEMBER 2024

Project meeting in Leuven 

The second project meeting of Miretage took place on 16, 17 and 18 September 2024 in Leuven, Belgium, and was hosted by KADOC KU Leuven. This meeting was dedicated to the literature review and featured a series of workshops to prepare the ground for the next step of the project: establishing our Heritage Labs and developing the Heritage Trails.

​

The first two workshops addressed heritage-making methodologies. They were offered by Guy Tilkin (Federation for European Storytelling) who focused on meaning-making methodologies and Hester Dibbits (Reinwardt Academy) on emotional networking.

​

The second two workshops offered by Arjen Barel (Storytelling Centre in Amsterdam) dived into the use of storytelling techniques in heritage identification processes and how they will support the development of Miretage heritage trails. Tharik Hussain, author, journalist and heritage activist, shared the successful case of Britain’s Muslim Heritage Trails and provided participants with keys for community involvement.

​

Participants also had the chance to walk the “Traces of Islam in Leuven” trail, which looks into the past and present of Islam's presence in the city.

JANUARY 2024

Symposium and project meeting in Groningen 

The kickoff meeting of Miretage took place on 22, 23 and 24 January 2024 in Groningen, the Netherlands, and was hosted by the University of Groningen. In this meeting, project partners looked together at the workplan for the three upcoming years and discussed the activities for the first stage of the project: a review of literature on religious heritage minorities and current heritage practices in Europe.

​

This meeting included the symposium “Religious Heritage & Minority Communities”, which took place on 23 January 2024 and provided project partners and the wider public with an overview of the main challenges facing Jewish and Muslim communities in a historically Christian heritage landscape. This open event provided project partners with useful input to diagnose current needs around minority religious heritage in Europe.

​

The symposium also marked the launch of “The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe”, a state-of-the-art guide to scholarship on religious heritage with critical analysis and an exploration of best practices.