On November 6, 2025, the Forum of Slavic Cultures (FSK) and the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe under the auspices of UNESCO organized an international expert colloquium entitled Interactive Exhibitions and Digital Curation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Museums. The event, held at Villa Zlatica in Ljubljana, brought together museum professionals, curators, and experts from eight countries to explore how museums combine tradition and innovation and how digital technologies contribute to the preservation and interpretation of intangible heritage.
The opening addresses were given by Andreja Rihter, Director of the FSK, Irena Todorova, Director of the Regional Center, and Tanja Roženbergar, President of the General Assembly of the Regional Center. They emphasized that, given the challenges of modern society, museums play a key role in preserving living heritage and connecting people with social reality, even in the digital age.
The central part of the colloquium covered a wide range of approaches to the preservation and communication of intangible heritage in museum practice. The common thread running through the presentations was the intertwining of the digital and the physical, reflecting on how technology – from interactive content to comprehensive digital platforms – can support accessibility, interpretation, and the transfer of traditions, knowledge, and skills to new generations. Today, museums preserve not only objects, but above all the living practices, stories, and experiences of communities.
Speakers Georgios Papaioannou (Ionian University, Corfu, Greece), Luçjan Bedeni (Marubi National Museum of Photography, Albania), Tihomir Tsarov (Regional Ethnographic Open-Air Museum Etar, Bulgaria), Tamara Nikolić Đerić (Kulturbüro, Croatia), Božana Đuzelović (Museum of Herzegovina Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Dino Buljat (Maritime Heritage Interpretation Centre DUBoak – Malinska, Croatia), Ivona Opetcheska-Tatarchevska (Directorate for Cultural Heritage Protection, North Macedonia), Adela Pukl (Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Slovenia), Isidora Đurić (Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia), and Stanislava Jovanović Mindić (Gallery of Matica Srpska, Novi Sad, Serbia) demonstrated how contemporary museums create stimulating environments for young creators, develop new models of visual culture, and encourage dialogue between established authors and a new generation of curators. The role of festivals, awards, performances, educational programs, and other forms of community collaboration that keep traditions alive and carry them into the future was also emphasized.
Museums were presented as spaces where tangible and intangible heritage complement each other. Examples were given of how collecting, documenting, and interpreting with various audiovisual and digital tools can strengthen the preservation of living heritage and enable a deeper understanding of its context. Innovative interpretative approaches that link the natural and cultural landscape into a comprehensive identity of local communities were highlighted, as well as projects that place ancient elements of heritage into the modern digital space through virtual reality and interactive technologies. One of the key challenges discussed was the museumization of practices such as dance, which are more difficult to capture without physical artifacts but remain an essential part of living heritage.
The colloquium highlighted how museums can become active bearers of living heritage through the thoughtful use of technology, collaboration with communities, and the development of innovative interpretive methods.