Perspectives on Safeguarding Indigenous Knowledge and Intangible Cultural Heritage

This paper represents a themed section of a broader research on the different declinations of the disciplines of architectural representation, with respect to the qualities of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the architectural-cultural landscape of Abruzzo, shared by some professors and researchers of the Department of Architecture of the University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara. The photographic and video representations, the subject of this paper, are among the most effective documentary evidence of the so-called Intangible Cultural Heritage. Static or moving images represent an irreplaceable medium for recording the multiple ephemeral creativities of the architectural-cultural landscape, allowing the scholar to make subsequent critical evaluations. Through the analysis of some audio-visual works related to the culture of Abruzzo – using three non-consequential keys: approach, progression, experience – the research analyses some “poetics of the ephemeral” related to landscapes, architectures, subjects, identities and memory. The study of the projects of “writing with light” allows, on the one hand, to outline a method that can be used with a infinite collection of documentary material and, on the other hand, it makes the subjects the interpreters of a new permanent tale by images that becomes a document itself.