Rituals

In the Rituals project, people were invited to tell the stories of their personal religious objects, experiences and rituals. These stories were then linked to the cultural heritage in museums and archives, at archaeological sites or inside buildings and public spaces by means of location-based mobile technology.

The project resulted in the mapping of personal routes across the city. These could be plotted in the form of modern-day processions. Where are your places of worship? How do you recognise spirituality in a hectic urban environment? Where do you find inspiration?

By sharing their personal interpretations of faith and spirituality with each other, regardless of their specific religious background, the participants in this project became acquainted with a number of different religions and cultures in the city. This created an exchange, a dialogue that transcended the religions themselves and enabled people to experience their familiar urban or rural surroundings in a different way. The public and private domain as well as the interior and exterior were fused and the borders separating them were dissolved.

A multitude of information that can enrich our immediate surroundings is available and conceivable. In addition to the personal stories collected in the project, the various cultural collections currently being digitised are an important source of information. Furthermore, modern technology offers the public the opportunity to experience their physical surroundings at different levels.

Erfgoed Nederland and Waag developed this project in the framework of 2008 Year of Religious Heritage.