The latest mapping of the heritage NGO sector in Central and Eastern Europe, conducted by the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków (to be published in June 2025), has shown that heritage practitioners and others working in the sector often suffer from stress and burnout. This is of course a wider trend across society.

How can we slow down and find our balance? Can heritage be the answer?

We ask the Cieszyn-based Serfenta Association, whose Craft Revitalisation Model earned them a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award in 2024, how to take things slow and whether traditional basket weaving is the answer for stressed-out urbanites in need of rest.

John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska speak to Paulina Adamska, Łucja Cieślar and Urszula Szwed from the Serfenta Association at the headquarters in Cieszyn.

“When the hands are working, the head is resting,” says Łucja Cieślar, one of the Serfenta team. During the podcast, she rustles various types of reeds and straw for your ASMR listening pleasure!

Over recent decades, a lot of industry in the region of Silesia has shut down. While some plants and factories have been demolished, others have stood the test of time and are still standing, albeit having been adapted to completely new functions, such as museums, art galleries, restaurants, cafes, hotels, and as headquarters of various companies.

Usually these buildings were in need of change, being adapted to serve current needs and possibilities, yet leaving some authenticity behind. Perhaps only in this way these buildings could have been saved… Join us as we discover Silesia and the potential for adaptation and reuse of the region’s industrial heritage.

In this episode we visit:

• Queen Louise Adit and Guido Mine at the Coal Mining Museum in Zabrze, Poland (European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Grand Prix award winner in 2019)
• Dolní Oblast Vítkovice complex in Ostrava, Czechia
• PLATO Contemporary Art Gallery in Ostrava, Czechia
• Landek Park Mining Museum in Ostrava, Czechia
• Zinc Rolling Mill in Świętochłowice, Poland (owned and managed by the Foundation for the Protection of Silesian Industrial Heritage, represented by Dr Piotr Gerber, Heritage Champion awarded in 2024)

In this inaugural episode of Heritage Hour, we speak to leading experts on the preservation of Jewish heritage in Poland.

We hear about the synagogue in Orla, in eastern Poland, and its submission to the 7 Most Endangered Programme run by Europa Nostra. What is special about the synagogue in Orla and why was it important to include it in the 7ME programme? Are there any other synagogues eligible? What is the scale of Jewish heritage sites that still need securing, protecting and restoring? What is the public awareness of Jewish heritage today? The Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków’s Katarzyna Jagodzińska and John Beauchamp are in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews to meet:

Jolanta Gumula – Deputy Director for Programming, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Piotr Ostrowski – Publisher, Virtual Shtetl online project, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Piotr Puchta – CEO, Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
Krzysztof Bielawski – Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
Aleksandra Janus – President, Zapomniane Foundation

Heritage Hour is the latest podcast series to come from the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

Each episode takes an important topic concerning heritage in our part of Europe and brings it to the table to discuss with a range of experts.

As the title suggests, the podcast is an hour-long discussion, which allows us to get to the heart of each matter, as well as giving a voice to the many heritage practitioners we will be meeting on the way!

The bare concrete structure of a decommissioned power plant, part of the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok in north-eastern Poland, is the home to an exhibition by Augustas Serapinas, a Vilnius-based artist who is putting a spotlight on the plight of regional wooden architecture.

For the exhibition, Serapinas has deconstructed three wooden buildings, which have all been decommissioned, from the Podlasie region as well as from his native Lithuania. The title of the exhibition is Pine, spruce and aspen, a nod to the native species of the region’s extensive forests.

Hosted by John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska

Out of the wooden beams, Serapinas has created a kind of labyrinth, and we can walk in and out of the houses, and the wooden zigzag structures weave a stark contrast to the concrete hall which the exhibition is housed in.

In this episode, we explore the plight of wooden vernacular architecture in the Podlasie region and beyond. Join us as we are in Białystok to see the exhibition for ourselves, and we are joined on the line by artist Augustas Serapinas and Matthew Post, a Podlasie-based curator originally from California who stands behind the idea for the exhibition.

The universal message will remain topical even after the exhibition closes. Despite its captivating aesthetics we read it as a gesture of activism, calling for the saving of this ephemeral heritage.

During the podcast we mention the Koźliki open air museum which we visited as part of the Ukraine Heritage Spotlight series: you can find out more here.

Dan Perjovschi is a Romanian artist, writer and journalist whose simple cartoon-like drawings provoke and appeal to audiences the world over.

His work is politically and socially engaging, and his exhibitions – which he usually “installs” himself by painting directly onto museum walls – are extremely popular, with shows being held at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, MoMa in New York, as well as a whole host of other institutions.

Perjovschi is often regarded as a disruptor, and his illustrations often provide a cynical – if not critical – view of the contemporary world with all its oddities and absurdities.

As an artist, Perjovschi challenges our contemporary view on the cultural heritage produced and interpreted by institutions.

In his role as an activist of sorts, he often questions authority – as well as the authority of the very places where he shows his art. How does that affect his creative process and how does he navigate our the ins and outs of our post-modern reality?

The Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska met Dan Perjovschi in Bucharest in October 2024 to discuss his work and his approach to art.

There are a number of moments during this episode when Dan uses strong language. You have been warned!

It’s the first Thursday in December, and in the southern Polish city of Kraków a number of people have gathered around the Adam Mickiewicz monument on the Main Market Square for the annual nativity scene competition.

Cracovian nativity scenes, or szopki, have been a regular fixture in the city since the 19th century, and since 1937 a competition has been running for the best-made cribs. But these are not your normal nativity scenes – yes of course, you have the Holy Family and it is representative for the Christian feast of Christmas, but what sets the Cracovian szopki apart is the technique in which they are made and their regional symbolism.

In 2018 this festive tradition, which adds a colourful accent to the Christmas atmosphere of the city, was inscribed to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska meet with Dr Andrzej Szoka, head of the Intangible Heritage Interpretation Centre of Kraków (part of the Museum of Kraków) to find out more this unique heritage.

Following our visit to the Tășuleasa Social and hiking a part of the Via Transilvanica (you can hear more in our episode on the Via Transilvanica here), we decide to carry on our journey through Romania and Bulgaria by taking in a few heritage sites.

Our first destination is the village of Viscri, an old Saxon village which is home to a fortified church, one of seven Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania inscribed onto UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1999. Viscri also caught the attention of the British Royal Family, when Prince Charles – now King Charles III – bought a house there in 2006 and has since become an advocate for the region’s rich cultural heritage.

After stopping off south of Bucharest for lunch we head over the Friendship Bridge into Bulgaria.

Veliko Tarnovo, one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria, has a history spanning some five millennia. It was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire and is now one of the country’s cultural centres. We visit the scenic hillside town and the old fortress of Tsarevets and then head for the Tuesday market in Pavlikeni – where we try some Bulgarian street food – and then hit the road towards the Black Sea coast.

Up in the hills not too far away from Varna we visit another UNESCO heritage site. The Madara Rider or Madara Horseman is a large early medieval rock relief in the mountains near Shumen depicting a majestic rider. What is amazing about the site, however, is the fact that it is larger than life and is still visible after well over 1000 years.

After going offline at Camping Kosmos in Durankulak, we head up towards the Danube Delta and stay in the port town of Tulcea before heading up over the Carpathians and towards the Bucovina region and the Humor Monastery, one of eight ‘Churches of Moldavia’ inscribed in to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

We end the podcast at the National Museum of the Village in Bucharest. But we are already planning our next road trip!

Head of the Kraków Heritage Hub Katarzyna Jagodzińska speaks to Tamas Fejerdy, a long-standing expert on cultural heritage and president of the Hungarian ICOMOS national committee.

Tamas Fejerdy is a treasure trove of knowledge about monuments and heritage, both in Hungary and across Europe. We speak broadly on today’s challenges of heritage protection in Hungary, matters of authenticity, the role of civil society when it comes to heritage, taking several sites and projects in Budapest and in the Hungarian provinces as illustrations.