An international research hub established to ensure sustainable future for Holocaust memory and education in the digital age at a ‘never more urgent’ time amid increasing denial, distortion and trivialisation in online spaces.
The Landecker Digital Memory Lab: Connective Holocaust Commemoration, based at the University of Sussex, UK, will act as a central hub for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and research on digital Holocaust memory and help to combat the growing challenge to expert knowledge on the subject in digital spaces.
Under Director Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, the Lab’s research has demonstrated that organisations commemorating the Holocaust are full of ‘digital imagination’ but the sector is facing a ‘sustainability crisis’ because of:
• a lack of basic technological infrastructure to support engagement with digital technologies
• increasing Holocaust denial, distortion and trivialisation online, perpetuated by AI
• a lack of training programmes to improve understanding of the digital aspects of Holocaust memory and education, and how to confront disinformation
To address these urgent problems, over the next 5 years, the Lab will cultivate new knowledge with novel research on topics including the impact of social media, computer games, VR and AR, AI and other digital media on Holocaust memory.
The Lab will also:
• create a ‘living database-archive’ of worldwide digital projects including hundreds of hours of interviews and walkthroughs
• lead a programme of co-design events held across Europe, Latin America and Australia bringing together Holocaust memory and education professionals, academics, technology and creative media industries and policymakers
• offer online and in-person opportunities for dialogue among these stakeholders to focus on affecting real change
• engage with funders and policymakers to encourage better support worldwide
• design a suite of training courses designed to enhance critical awareness of digital technologies for Holocaust organisations
• host three large-scale, international events to showcase and learn lessons from initiatives in this field
• host a free advisory and consultancy service
The Lab seeks to address these issues by providing a hub that aims to tackle them at the transnational level through interdisciplinary and cross-sector working. Holocaust memory and education are confronting an existential crisis; it has never been more urgent to do this work.”