HERITAGE could have a future as part of the creative sector and a series of webinars organised by an economy support organisation in the Highlands is exploring the potential for such a convergence.

This year’s first of the exclusive events introduced by design anthropologist, Dr Aude Le Guennec, took place yesterday.

Le Guennec’s work studies how design can translate human values into tangible experiences, and the webinars explore the interactions between the heritage and creative sectors.

They go on to investigate and discuss the possibilities of the former as part of the latter.

XpoNorth is hosting the five online events on the second Thursday of each month. They started in December and will run through to April.

The organisation is perhaps best known for its six-year-old XpoNorth Writers’ Tweet Pitch, which gives aspiring writers from across Scotland the chance to pitch their work to agents and publishers using just 280 characters.

The XpoNorth webinars will consider a range of topics, including how museums and heritage organisations can become archives of fashion products and how designers, in turn, might use these archives as inspiration for new work.

Most large textiles and fashion companies are likely to have their own archives of products which they can use to inspire current designs.

Many smaller businesses or those who have become established only recently, are not likely to have this level of access.

In her webinars, Le Guennec, who specialises in the narrative of heritage and its interpretation in the creative process, will discuss how the museum and creative business sectors can benefit from this kind of collaboration, and what opportunities there are for developing new products from it.

She will include conversations with leading fashion practitioners, researchers and curators amongst them Alan Scott, creative director at Johnstons of Elgin, design educationalist and author, Alison Harley and consultant in fashion luxury heritage, Sylvie Marot.

They will examine in some detail the valuable resource of heritage in the ideation of a new approach to product design.

The series of interactive webinars, which will include a panel discussion targeted towards the creative industries, heritage and museum sectors in Scotland and beyond, are free to attend.

Yesterday’s was the first this year, and they are scheduled to run between 1.30pm and 2.30pm until April 8.

Iain Hamilton, head of creative industries at Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), and a co-founder of XpoNorth said: “In this exclusive webinar series, Dr Aude Le Guennec is bringing a wealth of knowledge, experience and excellent guest speakers to help those in creative industries understand and utilise heritage and its interpretation in the creative process.

“We are thrilled to be offering this series and I look forward to seeing the innovation that I’m sure will follow as a result.”