Last week three members of ADS staff – Burcu Aksahin, Tasmin McCullen, and Solange Bohling – attended the Bespoke, Open, Creative and Collaborative Approaches to Heritage Documentation symposium (BOCCAHD).
The BOCCAHD project is a network of researchers and practitioners within Yorkshire who want to explore different ways of questioning, opening up, remixing and creatively engaging with the documentation of heritage. A series of public-facing and internal workshops has been facilitated using a grant from the White Rose University Consortium, with the purpose to share insights from project members’ and partners’ research and practice.
The symposium, held in Leeds City Museum, was divided into two key themes: ‘Data and Documentation’ and ‘Community and Collections’. As part of the afternoon session ‘Community and collections lightning talks’, Digital Archives Assistant Burcu Aksahin gave a presentation on her ongoing master’s dissertation (MSc Digital Archaeology), titled “Lost Villages of Southeastern Anatolia: A Digital Story”. This digital interactive storytelling project uses StoryMaps to showcase the daily life in two mound settlements, Aşvan and Tille, during the 1970s and 80s. These two villages located in Southeast Türkiye, were later evacuated and subsequently flooded by hydroelectric dam constructions.
Both the communities and the landscape, while physically lost today, have been documented extensively by the researchers and photographers that visited the area during the pre-flooding rescue excavations in the nearby mounds. Part of the photographic collection is accessible through the BIAA Digital Repository, and more will follow as part of the Lost Villages of the Upper Euphrates project, supported by the Modern Endangered Archives Program at the UCLA Library with funding from Arcadia.
The event also provided ADS staff with a valuable opportunity to engage in networking with a range of museum professionals and academics, who specialised in data cataloguing, documentation, and the preservation of cultural assets. During the event, ADS staff had the chance to exchange ideas, share best practices, and discuss current challenges in cultural heritage data management. Furthermore, productive discussions took place regarding potential future collaborations between the ADS and various institutions.
Having left the symposium ADS staff took some time to enjoy the Museum and reflect on a day of engaging with the digital documentation community and connecting with new partners.
