A virtual museum fallaire, outstanding action of Prometheus

A virtual museum on the falles, haros and brandons festivals is one of the outstanding actions of the Prometheus project “Festes del foc dels solsticis del Pirineu” promoted by the Chair on Education and Intangible Heritage of the Pyrenees (CEPIP) of the University of Lleida (UdL) with seven more partners, Catalan, French and Andorran research centers and public institutions.

The 3.0 museum is proposed as an interactive, participatory and inclusive space destined to promote popular culture and intangible heritage using new technologies. The idea is that the Fallaire communities themselves participate by contributing material and explaining how they want to be known, “a kind of wikimuseum”, explains the professor at the University of Barcelona, Xavier Roigé, in the official presentation of the project that took place this morning in the UdL.

Apart from the general public, the museum is also aimed at professionals and technicians from the educational sector, so that they can disseminate the richness of the intangible heritage of the Fallaire peoples, as well as researchers and scholars, who will be able to find various documents and investigations.

“We do not want to fossilize the party, but to make it alive and make it live through new technologies, because that is the most interesting thing,” added Roigé.

Apart from the museum, with which the Andorran government intends to collaborate, the Prometheus project includes the creation of a mobile application for the marking of the 63 Fallair towns -3 in Andorra, 17 in Catalonia and the Spanish State and 34 in France- , the development of pedagogical materials for primary and secondary schools in Occitan, Catalan, Spanish and French, of informative materials for SMEs and official organizations and the celebration of an international symposium on falles, haros and brandons, and the launch of studies cross-border superiors specialized in the intangible heritage of the Pyrenees.

The project, with a budget of one million euros, has 670,344.42 euros from the ERDF fund of the European Union obtained in the last call for the Spain-France-Andorra Territorial Cooperation Operational Program (POCTEFA) 2014-2020. Today it has been officially presented at the Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work of the UdL, with Sofia Isus (director of CEPIP), Rosa Amorós (general secretary of the Pyrenees Work Community) and Jaume Puy (rector of the University of Lleida) who congratulated the attendees for having managed to carry out the project and thus contribute to the revitalization of the territory, the Pyrenees, which “have suffered a strong neglect for a long time.”

The UdL is joined as project partners by the universities of Barcelona and Perpignan Via Domita, the International Center for Recherche et Documentation Occitanes – Occitan Institute of Culture, the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Government of Andorra, the Conselh Generau d’Aran, and the Lleida Provincial Board for Economic Promotion, which “has always been committed to cross-border cooperation”, explained the vice president of the Board, Carles Gilabert.