Future Stories in the Global Heritage Industry

Alia Yunis is a scholar, filmmaker, and writer whose work primarily engages with memory and heritage, particularly in the Arab and Muslim worlds and their diaspora. As program head of the Center of Heritage Activities (CIE), she oversees the development of HeritageLab’s interactive platforms connecting heritage and memory across oceans, particularly the online documentary Tree Routed. She recently co‑edited Reorienting the Middle East: Film and Digital Media between the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea (Indiana University Press, 2024). In 2010, she co‑founded the Zayed University Middle East Film Festival (ZUMEFF), now the longest running film festival in the Gulf. Her work has been translated into ten languages. She is a visiting scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC. Robert Parthesius is Program Head and Associate Professor of Heritage and Museum Studies and Founding Director of Dhakira – Center for Heritage Studies at New York University in Abu Dhabi. He is also the founder of the Amsterdam‑based CIE – Centre for International Heritage Activities (UNESCO‑accredited NGO). He is a maritime historical‑archaeologist and museum curator who has worked extensively on different World Heritage Port Cities reflecting on the rich maritime connections in the Indian Ocean. The way communities were using the past for their present through heritage creation became the main focus of his research. The broad base of involved heritage stakeholders fostered the growth of an innovative HeritageLab research concept: this interactive platform offers opportunities for researchers, artists, students, and communities to participate in multidisciplinary projects that rethink the heritage concept and its uses. Parthesius has published widely, including scholarly books, academic papers, exhibition catalogues, and publications for general audiences. He has organized several international heritage conferences and is an accredited UNESCO expert, serving at various expert committees of ICOMOS and ICOM. NiccolòAcram Cappelletto (he/him) is a writer and independent researcher, currently an MA student in Arts, Museology and Curatorship at the University of Bologna. After his BA in Art History at New York University Abu Dhabi, he worked as postgraduate research fellow with Dhakira Center for Heritage Studies on the relationship between heritage and art in postcolonial Italy, culminating in the first Dhakira Heritage Film Festival. In 2022, part of the research ended up in the booklet The Afterlives of the Postcolonial (Sharjah Art Foundation). In 2021, he joined as editor Global Art Daily, an independent publication on contemporary art in the UAE. These experiences raised his interest for a decolonial perspective of today’s theoretical frameworks.