Tuuli Lähdesmäki

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Research interests

Tuuli Lähdesmäki (PhD in Art History, DSocSc in Sociology) is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Jyväskylä (JYU). Has received the title of Docent in Art History at the University of Jyväskylä, in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki, and in Critical Heritage Studies at the University of Turku. Lähdesmäki's recent research interests and publications focus on EU cultural and heritage politics and policies, meaning-making processes in cultural heritage, strategies of interpreting the past, memory, identity and identity politics, and European narratives. She has actively applied and successfully received extremely competed for external research funding, altogether over €4,8 M. She has led the ERC St.G project EUROHERIT exploring EU heritage policies and initiatives and the construction of the European dimension of cultural heritage, and an Academy of Finland’s Postdoctoral research project (ID-ECC) and an Academy Fellow project (EUCHE) exploring EU cultural and identity politics and politics of belonging. She has also led a JYU’s consortium partnership in the DIALLS project, funded by Horizon2020 Programme, investigating dialogue and argumentation in cultural literacy learning in Europe. She has been one of the three PIs in JYU’s research profiling area Crises Redefined: Historical Continuity and Societal Change (CRISES) leading its focus area ‘Displacement and Belonging’. Moreover, she is a local leader of the Experiencing Europe Lab in a research alliance fostering transnational higher education and mobility (FORTHEM), funded by the European Universities Initiative under the Erasmus+ program. Lähdesmäki is currently leading an Academy of Finland research project examining heritage diplomacy in the EU's external cultural relations (HERIDI) and is JYU's consortium PI in two cultural heritage and cultural policy focused projects, ELABCROM and REBOOT, funded by from the HorizonEurope Programme. She has worked as a Visiting Scholar/Professor at the University of Cambridge, the University of Limerick, the University of Pécs, the European University Institute, and the Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

Fields of science

Personal keywords

Research interests: monuments, public art, public space, reception of art and cultural phenomena, discourse studies, cultural heritage, cultural memory, strategies of interpreting the past, cultural identity, identity politics, heritage politics, intercultural dialogue, the European Capital of Culture, the European Heritage Label, European identity, EU heritage policy, heritage diplomacy

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