Parade for the celebrations of Ayacucho in their carnivals.© Milton Rodriguez / Shutterstock.com

The call for participation in the pilot project ‘Community-based inventorying of intangible cultural heritage in the urban context of Ayacucho, Peru’ attracted hundreds of applicants. Of these, 56 selected public officials, archaeologists, anthropologists, communicators, teachers, bearers, practitioners and cultural managers came together in January 2020 for an initial training workshop with the objective to set up the methodological framework for the inventorying and to plan the process.

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic reached Peru in March 2020, a general confinement was declared, and all field work had to be put on hold. To sustain the interest and momentum gained during the preparatory phase, UNESCO proposed to continue the project during confinement through the use of both digital and analogue technologies, including virtual interviews with bearers and academic researchers. Three online meetings were organized between April and June to present the advancements of the inventorying process. These provided a great opportunity to collect lessons learnt, formulate recommendations and discuss new paths for collaboration.

The final virtual workshop on 11 July 2020 was honored by the presence of Ms Mozo Mercado from the Intangible Heritage Directorate of the Ministry of Culture of Peru, and Mr Gutiérrez Gutiérrez, the Mayor of the city of Huamanga. The video of the workshop is available here (Spanish).

The project is part of the initiative ‘Intangible Heritage and Creativity for Sustainable Cities’ implemented with the generous support from Yong Xin Hua Yun, China.

Project:

Community-based inventorying of intangible heritage in urban areas (1 January 2018 – 1 December 2021)