Digital Approach towards Community-Based Activities with Culture and Heritage during COVID-19: Knowledge Transfer A Narrative Experience

Abstract

Culture and heritage activities have always relied heavily on assembling a group of people to bring the event to life. However, during the pandemic COVID-19, these events cannot be held due to the restrictions and the danger it could bring in spreading the diseases. As a result, new options should be made available to ensure that cultural and heritage activities can continue in the face of adversity. This study describes the researcher’s experience in a knowledge transfer project on the long-term sustainability and conservation of community-based cultural and heritage activities during the COVID-19 epidemic. To preserve and sustain cultural activities, the article suggests a digital approach to culture and heritage activities. The research is based on the researcher’s observations and fieldwork experience. The result indicated that Lambo Sari and the research team kept track of each participant’s progress during the monitoring phase, which was the fourth step of this effort. In addition, the WhatsApp messaging service was used to track the project leader’s core communication with the participants. Apart from the monitoring phase, the fifth phase consists of a webinar delivered by the researcher and team to the general public and participants to increase awareness about the importance of cultural and historical preservation. In conclusion, cultural heritage conservation has been rendered extremely difficult due to the epidemic. If physical preservation of cultural heritage was done back then, revolutionization is required to stay up with the present period and make use of new technologies.