A look back at 'Lost and Found'

How can a heritage collection reach people beyond its usual audience? For the Boekentoren, the answer was to open its doors and link the collection to a theme that is highly relevant today: the climate and biodiversity crisis. In faro magazine, the university library looks back on the three-part series Lost and Found – Caring for What Is (about to Disappear).

Over the past academic year, as part of its public engagement work centred on the heritage collection, the Boekentoren tackled a contemporary theme: the climate and biodiversity crisis.

The emphasis was very much on a poetic and artistic approach. By developing a triptych, we were able to gradually transform feelings about climate change into something constructive, moving from sadness to a hopeful outlook on the future: ‘Lost’ – which featured a procession exploring grief on Remembrance Day for Lost Species; ‘Found’ – with an exhibition celebrating wonder at what still remains; and ‘Caring’ – with a ‘lying-down’ concert that creates space to look to the future with active hope.

In the article, you can read about the challenges and lessons learnt. Collaborating with academics, artists and activists – thinkers and creators from outside the university – gave the project a depth that we, as a university library, could never have achieved on our own. It also required clear agreements, a well-defined division of roles and a great deal of flexibility, despite limited resources. ‘Lost and Found – Caring for What Is (about to Disappear)’ demonstrates that a heritage collection and social relevance can go hand in hand.

The triptych was realised thanks to heritage funding from the Flemish Government, which the Boekentoren is using to develop public engagement around the heritage collection. The article in faro explains how this came about and what it achieved: a wider audience for the collection and a social issue that was brought to the fore in a poetic way.

You can find the full retrospective in the magazine.