Designing a Web-Interface for Exploring Cultural Narratives of Saint Petersburg
Ms. Lada Zimina and Prof. Antonina Puchkovskaia, ITMO University, Saint Petersburg
10 June 2021
This presentation explores the question of cultural heritage data representation in the urban context. It investigates how to build a user-friendly interface that is both interactive and educational that provides easy access to a curated dataset. ‘St.Retrospect’ - a mapping project for representing culturally significant locations in Saint-Petersburg - is designed as an attempt to answer these questions. The database includes a repository of various historical sources provided by the Russian National Library and incorporates information on more than 1000 locations and approximately 1000 related historical figures. Considering the discursive and associative nature of heritage that has been pointed out by various scholars, St. Retrospect is not limited to institutionalized interpretation of the heritage, it is designed as an open-source project. The mission of the project, therefore, is to raise awareness about culturally significant sites among the local community, as well as to engage its members in the evaluation of historic locations, the identification of their cultural significance, and the collection of relevant data.
This presentation was delivered at the (en)coding Heritage Seminar Series, which brough together researchers working at the cutting edge of digital technologies, humanities and heritage science. The session was dedicated to Mapping Real and Imagined Sites. The full programme can be found here.
Organised and chaired by Dr Lia Costiner (University of Oxford) and Dr Leonardo Impett (Durham University) for the Oxford (en)coding Heritage Network.
(en)coding Heritage Network, TORCH Networks
