Wheel chart of sustainability and intangible cultural heritage developed in Finland

Intangible cultural heritage can effectively contribute to sustainable development. In Finland, a concrete tool has been developed to discuss and analyse the different dimensions of sustainable development in relation to living heritage in a practical way.

What does sustainable development mean in practice? How can it be better taken into account while working with living traditions?

You can print out the tool from this website and use it for your own purposes – be it analyzing your own work, hobby or the activities of your institution. We hope it will be used by many all over the world!

The four dimensions of sustainable development (ecological, economical, social, and cultural) have been divided into eight categories of questions that are interconnected. In the wheel chart you will find 24 questions to help to analyse and develop the current situation. This is how to do it:

1. Choose a living heritage phenomenon or activity that interests you.

2. Look at the topics on the edge of the outer sleeve.

3. Choose an interesting topic and explore the questions. Try to be open-minded and avoid obvious answers.

4. Explore as many topics as you like. What are the new thoughts (1-3) you could put into practice?

The Wheel Chart was developed for and tested at the seminar “Living Heritage in the Nordic countries” held in Finland November 2019. The World Saving Clinic had 50 participants testing and further developing the tool.

The wheel chart has been developed as a part of the project of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture: “Creating new practises of sustainability - Cross-sectorial creativity in the era of climate change”. The project is a creative response for supporting sustainable development by using art and culture as activators for developing the social discourse in an eco-social, economic and cultural direction.

Team members were from the Finnish Heritage Agency (Leena Marsio), the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Antti Huntus, Aura Seikkula), Future Research Centre / University of Turku (Katriina Siivonen), The Association for Cultural Heritage Education (Ira Vihreälehto and Hanna Lämsä), Finnish Folk Music Institute (Matti Hakamäki) and Humap (Vesa Purokuru).

Download the wheel chart here.

If you are interested in translating and using the wheel chart in some other language, do contact us!

More information:

Leena Marsio, Finnish Heritage Agency, leena.marsio(at)museovirasto.fi

Antti Huntus, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, antti.huntus(at)taike.fi