Art itself often becomes heritage or it can help to give new meanings to heritage phenomena. For us both are important, but our area of interest is particularly heritage interpretation, which is a methodology of interpreting heritage phenomena. Interpretation is the art of relevance, it can render the presentation exciting, polyphonic, colorful and imaginative, it asks questions and it strengthens people’s connections towards heritage. We work with artists, art organizations and art education institutions on a regular basis. We also work for fostering cooperation between artists and heritage institutions, or collaborations where heritage values become a starting point for exciting artistic work.

KÖME is committed towards cultural and natural heritage and sees these two in unity. Amongst our members and partners there are many who work with natural heritage. The nature of heritage is that it’s part of the complex ecological system in which we live and create cultures. For KÖME it’s especially important to convey traditional and contemporary ecological knowledge, so that they become part of our everyday practices.

KÖME’s motto is: Heritage together! In our view different phenomena can only become heritage if there are people who take ownership and stewardship over them, who value them, interpret them, re-live and revitalise them and convey them. Heritage cannot be thought apart from the communities which live together with it. 

We cooperate regularly with municipalities, citizen groups, educational organizations and institutions to prepare decisions, strategies or to actualize concrete programs. Cooperation and collaboration is also crucial for our work methods.

Heritage is an important asset for tourism. 

In order to think responsible one of  KÖME’s goals is to strongly involve this sector’s aspects into the heritage professional discussion. On our professional forums, trainings, and projects with heritage tourism we are searching for the answer of how to realize sustainable and eco-friendly tourism.

The heritage phenomena are connected to complex cultural-social-economical spaces. Those areas, where the consciousness toward heritage is low are disadvantageous in terms of development. Heritage is an origin of development carrying diversity. It is a resource against other development areas to get advantages, work out disadvantages or stimulate cooperations. KÖME helps the decision makers with counseling, making professional plans or accomplish actions and forums to open up and use the possibilities that regional heritage has, and to help the communities to process and manage the problems in the way of developments.

To present and interpret heritage is a complex process which can be defined today with the concept of heritage interpretation. Heritage interpretation creates phenomena into experiences, it opens up meanings and correlations connected to them, inspires to think, involves different views and encourages to act responsibly. KÖME mixes the holistic view of heritage interpretation with our experiences of ecological embeddedness. We are members of the international network of Interpret Europe and our goal is to create a regional network for heritage interpretation.

Nowadays we do not only place heritage as tangible and intangible, but as digital as well. Digital technology is a rich heritage itself, which is waiting for a continuous reinterpretation and representation. KÖME takes part in many projects which use digital culture to place heritage values, transfer between past and present with digital tools and reflect recent use of media.