TRAMA

TRAMA “Cultural transformations. Intangible heritage and new digital-driven professional profiles” is a national project dedicated to cultural transformation and the digital valorisation of intangible heritage, developed within the CHANGES programme and funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU. At a time when digital technologies are increasingly shaping the ways in which intangible heritage is preserved, transmitted, accessed, and experienced, TRAMA aims to map innovative practices and emerging digital skills, monitor ongoing trends within the cultural ecosystem through the use of artificial intelligence, and experiment with training pathways and applied pilot projects.

The project’s objective is to support heritage custodians, cultural institutions, creative industries, educators, and policy-makers in understanding and managing the current digital transformation, contributing to the development of informed strategies for the safeguarding and enhancement of intangible cultural heritage. To address these challenges, TRAMA develops and tests an articulated set of operational and methodological tools designed to accompany cultural ecosystem actors in processes of analysis, design, and strategic decision-making. Among these, the ICH Digital Valorization Canvas, designed and implemented to support different stakeholders in the analysis of digital projects and the planning of strategic concepts, represents one of the project’s core components. Conceived as a tool for reflection and co-design, the Canvas connects cultural, technological, and organisational dimensions, fostering a structured reading of existing practices and the development of new trajectories of growth.

Within this framework sits the collaboration with the Gianfranco Ferré Research Centre, which constitutes Pilot 1 of the project. Conceived as a field-based experimentation, the pilot was designed to test the effectiveness of TRAMA’s tools within a real and highly qualified context. The hybrid nature of the Centre – both archive and active research space – provided a particularly fertile ground for assessing the tools’ ability to identify, describe, and activate the intangible heritage linked to design practice.

The programme unfolded through two complementary workshops. The first focused on analysing the Research Centre’s existing practices and bringing to light the intangible heritage connected to Gianfranco Ferré’s design methodology, highlighting assets such as oral testimonies, knowledge, processes, and operational logics that are often not formally codified. The second workshop shifted towards a design-oriented perspective, guiding participants in the construction of future visions and strategic concepts capable of translating the archive’s intangible heritage into strategies, projects, and concrete directions for the digital valorisation of cultural heritage.