University of Leicester
Thesis title:
The purpose of my research is to explore the museum as a platform for sound culture. I investigate the role that sound culture could have in the transformation of museum conceptualization in the post-digital age, a moment when digitality is becoming increasingly assimilated as an integral part of some organizational structures and development. In particular, I assume that sound culture and the contemporary sonic practices can be a catalyst for the adoption of a new platform model that is acting on museums as both metaphor, organizational structure and business model. This investigation addresses two main different challenges that contemporary museums are facing: (1) the embrace of sound culture, a broad concept that include sonic elements in the collection and in the design of cultural experiences, and that has always been underrepresented in a predominantly visual and material system; (2) the evolution of museum conceptualization, that started to change with the digital revolution and the emergence of the participatory turn and, in a post-digital context, is ready to mature into a new paradigm around the model of ‘platform’. Both issues require the museum to change not only at practical level – introducing new spaces, practices, processes of cultural production – but also at ontological level – introducing a rethinking of what museums are, why they exist and how they conceive heritage. The traditional museum conceptualization – a physical institution devoted to the collection and display of objects of material culture – struggles both to accomodate sound culture and to embrace the post-digital age. The aim of the research is to demonstrate how platform can be not only the new paradigm of the 21stcentury museum, but also the form by which it can evolve in a place for sound – and not only visual – culture.
Digital Heritage: how do millennials perceive and experience it?(http://diculther.today/digital-heritage-punto-vista-lesperienza-dei-giovani/). Conference proceedings of the Conservation and Promotion of European Intangible Heritage meeting, Treccani Institute, Rome, July 2016
MAP - Museums Accessibility Platform. Master thesis available on Ca' Foscari University digital archive (February 2015)
ENCHANTING DOLOMITES How performing arts can add value to the new World Heritage Site. In 2011 my Bachelor dissertation won the award for the best thesis regarding the Dolomites Heritage and in 2012 it was published by the Municipality of Valle di Cadore, Italy with the support of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation (http://www.ibs.it/code/9788890739613/zardini-lacedelli-stefan/incantare-dolomiti-proposta.html)
In 2019 I received the M3C Cultural Engagement Award that recognised the impact of my research on the museum sector.
The role of digital platforms in the museum evolution
President and co-founder of DOLOM.IT, a participatory virtual museum that involved more than 1000 participants and 50 cultural institutions in the creation of new digital heritage dedicated to the Dolomites landscape.
Co-founder of ADOMultimedia Heritage, a lab aimed to foster innovation in the museum field by developing new tools to experience cultural heritage in the digital age.
Research collaborator of Digital Cultural Heritage School.
Research collaborator of the interdisciplinary lab Mile, Museums and Innovaton in Language Education.
External member of m.a.c.lab – the laboratory of Management of Arts and Culture at Ca’ Foscari University - Department of Management.