HERITAGE REVEALED, Flights into the Past/Heritage Revealed (Exhibition)

Flights into the Past/Heritage Revealed    
The general public mainly believes that the primary activity of archaeology is excavation; however, in the past few years, this discipline has undergone dramatic changes. One of the major changes is the increasingly frequent use of non-destructive research methods which has, due to growing tendencies towards new spatial interventions, led to the development of preventive archaeology. In this context, a part of modern archaeology started to examine a wider populated area, to identify the changes in the landscape created by humans together with nature, from the distant geological past, through first significant spatial interventions by the emergence of farming, and all the way to military conflicts in the 20th century which radically altered the appearance of certain areas.
The “Flights into the Past” exhibitions. “Slovene cultural heritage from the air” and “Heritage Revealed” are additions to the hosting exhibition “Flights into the Past”, which is one of the outcomes of the multiannual international project in the context of the EU culture programme Culture 2000 entitled “European Landscapes: Past, Present and Future”. These technical exhibition will take place from 16 July to 17 August 2012 at the Salon 2012, while the extremely visually attractive non-technical exhibition called “Heritage Revealed” will be held at the same time at Leon Štukelj Square till 1 of September. The two exhibitions on Slovenia feature only a few chosen areas explored in the past few years by using the so called non-destructive archaeological methods. Some researches were conducted in the context of research projects, while others are the result of working within the Preventive Archaeology Centre at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia; however, all these researches can be compared with good practices in the field of European archaeology and the protection of cultural heritage. Especially in the latter, preventive archaeology is or has already been established. This modern concept allows good short-term results in the sense of protecting cultural heritage, yet we need to be aware of the fact that its true importance will be apparent over a longer period of time. By using remote sensing methods, heritage can be seen from a completely different perspective since it is no longer an isolated point in space but a whole landscape that needs to be documented and understood as a palimpsest of innumerable traces before destroying it forever with new spatial interventions. The exhibition will be on view every day.