PI: Yan Zhou (TU Delft). Co-applicants: Diwen Tan (TU Delft), Merit Zimmermann (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Tze Ning Hong (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Shadman Shahid (Leiden University).
Abstract: Cultural heritage identification and evaluation have evolved from following authorized heritage discourse to people-centred prossess. However, the current management of previously nominated world heritage properties is still somehow narrated through a static, monumental lens. For example, Amsterdam’s world heritage property, “Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht”, remains a tangible and temporally static for what counts as Outstanding Universal Value: e.g., port city, gabled facades, 17th and 18th centuries. Although “Chinatown,” located in the buffer zone, is included as an element supporting the nomination, the diaspora-shaped urban fabrics remain structurally underrepresented due to world heritage conservation. The Chinese diaspora has been a continuous presence in Amsterdam since the early twentieth century. The community memory and everyday practices rarely reach heritage managers. This results in a tension between the heritage that is selected and the heritage that is lived, and more fundamentally, between a static and a dynamic reading of Amsterdam’s urban heritage. This project responds to the problem with a public exhibition in Amsterdam, “Moments and Places of Diaspora”, to showcase the collective memories and living heritage created and maintained by the Chinese diaspora. The exhibition presents content collected since 2023, including historical-contemporary photo pairs of diaspora-related spaces in Amsterdam city center (collected from Chinese diaspora, Stadsarchief and Nationaal Archief), lived stories with interview quotations (30 stakeholders), alongside policy data visualisations (collected from Dutch heritage agencies RCE, KIEN). A workshop will be organized during the exhibition to explore diasporic heritage in broader material and urban contexts. The exhibition places evidence side by side (photo pairs, quotations, and policy designations) and lets audiences discover gaps and opportunities in conservation. Consequently, this project aims to make this heritage legible to both.