The project “Enhancing Social Cohesion through Sharing the Cultural Heritage of Forced Migrations – SO-CLOSE” will last 3 years. The mission of the project is to contribute to social cohesion and fight refugee marginalization or exclusion by facilitating the encounters between similar life stories, through the mediation of innovative digital and artistic tools. Based on theories of cultural heritage-making, exposing the commonalities of past and present experiences, listening to the target groups’ needs and through the development of a methodology template of co-creative design of replicable digital tools and cultural products, SO-CLOSE will improve social cohesion and promote mutual understanding between refugees and their local communities.
The resulting data and methodology will be used to develop several digital applications, for which purpose we have in our consortium strong technological partners with experience in this field. Working at the intersection of history, sociology, cultural studies, art and computer science, SO-CLOSE will design educational and cultural tool like interactive cookbooks, interactive documentaries based on immersive video recording, AI-powered Chatbots, interactive exhibitions based on personal memories and storytelling or an online platform, named Memory Center, built as a content aggregator and services platform.
Among the 9 members of the project consortium, the Villa Decius Association is responsible for communication within the project and international promotion.
