Over the past decade, digital access to cultural heritage has expanded significantly. Through Europeana.eu (the foundation of the common European data space for cultural heritage), millions of digitised items from cultural heritage institutions across Europe are openly available for discovery, research, education and creative reuse. At the same time, digital audiences are increasingly looking for ways to engage with culture that go beyond searching, filtering and viewing individual records.
Our collaboration with Artetra, a European-based software company, offers users an additional way of working with the content available through Europeana.eu: using immersive, spatial environments. This partnership builds on Europeana’s existing infrastructure and values, while focusing on curation, storytelling and experience.
From collections to curated spaces
Europeana works with a network of national and thematic aggregators to aggregate, enrich and provide access to cultural heritage data at scale. Artetra, with their mission of enhancing engagement, accessibility and providing monetisation opportunities for institutions and creators, builds on this foundation by offering a way to place selected items from Europeana.eu into virtual, walkable environments.
Thanks to their integration with Europeana’s APIs (specifically the Search, Record and User Set APIs), people can now search content from Europeana.eu directly within Artetra’s online platform, select items of interest, and place them into a 3D gallery setting. Alternatively if a user has already identified an item of interest on Europeana.eu, they can import it in the Artetra platform just by copying and pasting the unique item URL. Finally, users can curate a gallery of digitised cultural heritage items on Europeana.eu itself and import that gallery into Artetra’s platform simply by pasting their unique URL.
With this partnership a direct link is created between Europeana’s familiar tools for selection and organisation, and Artetra’s immersive exhibition spaces. Rather than starting from scratch, users can build on work they have already done within the Europeana ecosystem.
Artetra also allows users to upload their own artworks alongside content from Europeana.eu. This makes it possible to create hybrid exhibitions, where institutional heritage material can be shown in dialogue with contemporary work, research outputs or creative responses.
Encouraging reuse and experimentation
Supporting reuse is a core part of Europeana’s mission. The collaboration with Artetra provides a practical example of how data made available through Europeana.eu can be reused in ways that are exploratory rather than purely informational. By working with spatial layouts instead of lists or grids, users are encouraged to think differently about selection, grouping and interpretation.
This approach can be valuable for a range of audiences, including educators developing learning environments, students experimenting with exhibition-making, researchers exploring visual narratives, or cultural professionals prototyping exhibition concepts outside a physical gallery. Importantly, this experimentation does not require advanced technical skills, lowering the barrier for those who want to explore new forms of digital curation.
Shared values, different roles
The partnership between Europeana and Artetra works because it builds on complementary strengths. Europeana provides the data and a robust framework for access and reuse. Artetra provides an experimental environment where that content can be recontextualised, combined with original work, and experienced spatially.
Both organisations share an interest in making cultural heritage accessible, meaningful and relevant in a digital context. By connecting the collections made available through Europeana.eu with immersive environments, the collaboration invites users not only to view cultural heritage, but to actively work with it—curating, interpreting and reshaping it for different purposes and audiences.
Looking ahead
As digital cultural practices continue to evolve, partnerships such as this one with Artetra enable cultural heritage to move across platforms and formats while remaining open and reusable. This partnership is one example of how cultural heritage institutions and experimental digital spaces can connect, supporting new forms of engagement without losing sight of quality, context and trust.
Rather than offering a single answer to how cultural heritage should be experienced online, with this partnership we hope to open up space for testing, learning and iteration—an approach that is increasingly important as the cultural sector navigates a rapidly changing digital landscape.
Get involved
Are you interested in using Europeana’s APIs to integrate cultural heritage data into a tool or product? Find out more and get an API key.