CRDI has curated a collection of 2.895 photographs and 218 videos about castellers (human castles) which are on the 2010 UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage and which, according to the UNESCO Committee, are ‘recognized by the Catalan people as an integral part of their cultural identity, transmitted from generation to generation and providing community members a sense of continuity, social cohesion and solidarity.’
In addition, CRDI has also curated a collection of daguerreotype photographs and digitised 99 items in 3D for aggregation to Europeana. This is one of the biggest collections of daguerreotypes in Spain, digitized for the first time in high quality 3D. Daguerreotype represents the very beginning of photography and as such is highly relevant and interesting for different communities. The technique consists of an image in copper and silver and it is usually presented in a case or frame. It is the first world-wide photographic technique, started in 1839, and for its high cost it was mainly used by the bourgeois class. Most of the photographs from that era are portraits, as getting out of the studio was very difficult. These portraits replace painting and miniatures, as they are completely trustworthy to the person and are also of great beauty. However, the portraits of the first decade of photography are made with the daguerreotype technique and, therefore, these are unique objects (they are direct positives that cannot be reproduced) of great heritage value.
This unique experience in the history of photography has been recreated today, by leveraging the best digitization techniques to offer the greatest possible realism in the digital user experience, using photogrammetry in order to show the objects as they really are. The fact of being able to present these objects in 3D is an achievement of great importance and an added value in Europeana. All these newly digitized 3D items are made available by CRDI in Public Domain, thus offering unlimited possibilities of reuse.