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H2020Staff exchange2021–2024

CONQUES · Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2021-01-01 → 2024-12-31
EU contribution
€855,600
Participants
8
Scheme
MSCA-RISE

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage

The CONQUES project has undertaken an interdisciplinary and integrative study of Conques, a remarkable pilgrimage and tourist site in Southern France renowned for its rich visual, material, and ritual culture spanning from the ninth to the twenty-first century. By drawing on expertise from diverse fields — including art history, history, anthropology, music and performance studies, archaeology, archaeometry, digital technology, and visual studies — the project has systematically examined the site’s monuments, their chronology, their restorations, and their broader historical and art historical significance. A central aim of the project has been to elevate Conques from its current marginal position in academic discourse and public consciousness, fully recognizing its exceptional artistic and historical value beyond touristic interests. The research team, consisting of experts from six European and two American institutions, has thus examined the main stages in the medieval and post-medieval construction of Conques – its abbey, treasure, buildings, landscape, and intangible performative culture – to reconstruct crucial aspects of the development of the medieval European cultures involved. A key objective has been to investigate how Conques has been shaped by historical processes, from its medieval development to its reinterpretation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when medieval heritage was selectively restored and repurposed within broader ideological and cultural frameworks.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Conques is visited annually by thousands of tourists and walking pilgrims. It is a unique site of cultural heritage preserving outstanding visual, material, and ritual cultures from the 9th to the 21st c. Regretfully, its cultural significance contrasts with the lack of comprehensive scholarly attention. Its date, level of reconstruction, and place in the story of the history of art have all been disputed. This is alarming, since a complex understanding of this unique site is indispensable for both the effective research of scientific communities and the expansion of interest among public audiences. The CONQUES project emerges from an ongoing story of exchanges and interactions between scholars, institutions, and fields of research. The overall goal of CONQUES is to promote the first interdisciplinary integrative research on the site, combining the expertise from five different fields, and thus to increase its currently marginal role in public discourse. Our aim is to reconstruct crucial elements in the development of European culture through investigating major stages in the medieval construction of Conques, but also to reimagine and tell the story of the 19th and 20th century “re-invention” of the European Middle Ages.We will break new ground in different disciplines by employing both classic and experimental methods. The key outcomes of this integrative analysis will include: a) a long overdue scientific monograph; b) the creation of a sustainable collaborative research platform working at the crossroads of different disciplines; c) an integrative protocol of research, which will be transferable and exploitable on other sites of the shared medieval European culture; d) the creation of a sustainable public outreach program sharing the results of this multidisciplinary research with a wide audience through exhibitions, and public lectures, and widely disseminated didactic books for the public and tourists.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • Masarykova univerzita · BrnoCoordinatorCzechia
  • ASSOCIATION POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT ECONOMIQUE DE CONQUES · Conques En RouergueFrance
  • CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisFrance
  • MAX WEBER STIFTUNG DEUTSCHE GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTLICHE INSTITUTE IM AUSLAND · BONNGermany
  • MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · MUNCHENGermany
  • RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY · New BrunswickUnited States
  • THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK CORPORATION · New YorkUnited States
  • VIELLA SRL · ROMAItaly

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union