An ensemble of sculptures in the Romanian city of Târgu Jiu by renowned artist Constantin Brâncuși is now on the UNESCO Heritage List.

For this episode of Holistic Heritage, John Beauchamp and Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska are in Târgu Jiu, where they take a look at the Brâncuși sculptures: the Table of Silence, Gate of the Kiss and perhaps the best known sculpture of the ensemble, the Endless Column.

We also visit the Deputy Mayor of Târgu Jiu Dr Adrian Tudor, who speaks about the process of getting Brâncuși’s ensemble onto the list and the city's plans regarding their new status as a UNESCO city since 2024. He is joined by colleague Oana Șomănescu, who kindly helped translate our conversation.

Muzeum Sztuki (literally “Art Museum” in Polish) is one of the first contemporary art museums in the world, and was conceived by renowned artist Władysław Strzemiński and created thank to the grassroots collection of art pieces from leading artists connected to Paris at that time.

Over decades the museum expanded, occupying three buildings connected to the textile industry which built the wealth and identity of Łódź. Even today, it remains one of the leading museums of modern and contemporary art, interconnected with major international institutions.

In this episode Katarzyna Jagodzińska and John Beachamp hold a meeting with Dr Leszek Karczewski, Deputy Director of the Muzeum Sztuki, to learn about coexistence of this “temple of art” with the capital of textile industry in the 20th and 21st centuries.

A background for the conversation is a participatory exhibition (“How the Museum Works”, 2025/2026) co-created by the entire team of the museum and mounted in the first museum building called ms1 located in the former palace of the owner of the Poznański textile enterprise, while the whole story starts and ends in the gardens of the Herbst Palace, part of the Scheibler textile empire, winner of the Europa Nostra Award medal for conservation in 1990.

For this episode of Holistic Heritage, we meet the team at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub for Central and Eastern Europe and take a look back at the first few years of the Kraków Hub and its activities.

Hosted by John Beauchamp and Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska, Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków. Also featured in the episode are Deputy Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków, Dr Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga, and Communications Manager Łukasz Pieróg.

The Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków was established in July 2022, hitting the ground running to increase awareness of heritage issues across the region.

A major project undertaken by the Heritage Hub in Kraków was the mapping of the NGO heritage sector in the CEE region. We also set up the Kraków Heritage Forum, a series of meetings for practitioners to discuss local matters, such as culinary traditions and the Fortress Kraków network of forts surrounding the city.

We also discuss how our podcasts are a great tool to communicate our activities and the regional heritage ecosystem to a global audience.

In the episode, you can hear excerpts of soundscapes recorded while travelling across the region:

1. Organ interlude at St. Mary’s Basilica in Kraków, home of the Wit Stwosz alterpiece which won a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award in 2023.
2. Walking the Via Transilvanica hiking trail near Piatra Fântânele in Romania, summer 2024.
3. A crackling fire opens the Łemkowska Watra festival in southern Poland in July 2024.
4. Urban soundscape of the city of Lviv, western Ukraine, April 2024.
5. Mining machinery in operation at the Queen Luiza Adit mine in Zabrze, Poland, early 2025.
6. Onboard a vaporetto in the Italian city of Venice on the occasion of the European Cultural Heritage Summit in September 2023.
7. The snap and crackle of wicker weaving at the Serfenta Association in Cieszyn, Poland, April 2025.
8. Mechanical looms being operated at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, June 2025.
9. A thunderstorm in the Beskid highland village of Nowica, summer 2024.
10. The Polish-Ukrainian folk band “Hraybery” play in the south-eastern border town of Przemyśl, summer 2024.