On Thursday 17 October 2024, Luxembourg's Ministry of Culture announced UNESCO's launch of "International Day of Intangible Cultural Heritage", 21 years after the "Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage" was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) refers to "intangible cultural heritage" as customs, performances, expressions, customs, knowledge and skills that people themselves consider as part of their cultural heritage. This is why the intangible cultural heritage is also called "living cultural heritage", which can be best documented and communicated through "living pictures".

Based on the Heritage Act of 2022, the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the people who keep the intangible cultural heritage alive in Luxembourg, is working to preserve this heritage and pass it on to future generations.

The Ministry of Culture has started to document all sixteen customs and traditions that have been included in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage (IKI) with individual videos ("IKI-Clip for Jonker"). This takes place in close collaboration with the SCRIPT (Service de Coordination de la Recherche et de l'Innovation Pédagogiques et Technologiques) service of the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth, which has established appropriate didactic material for each IKI clip, to use in educational facilities.

In accordance with UNESCO's requirements, every IKI clip has been recorded in the original language of the people who practice the relevant cultural heritage here in Luxembourg. All IKI clips are subtitled in four language versions: Luxembourgish, German, French and English.

To celebrate the first International Day of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Culture is now launching three new IKI clips: "House and Flower Names", "D'Hiewanskunst" and "Flying".

These three new clips, for which SCRIPT has started to develop didactic material, can be found together with the IKI clip "The art of dry masonry" on the Youtube channel of the Ministry of Culture (https://gd.lu/8tfnqf) and www.iki.lu under the heading "IKI clips and didactic material": https://iki.lu/page/index/3.

Other IKI clips are currently still in the works and will gradually be published.