Borneo Cultures Museum exterior in Kuching
Borneo Cultures Museum in Kuching, Sarawak, on July 23, 2024. File photo of the venue listed for an Oct. 15 ICOMOS GA2026 workshop on people-centred AI and digital twins; it does not show the upcoming event. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Borneo_Cultures_Museum_(2024).jpg License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Resized for publication. Medelam / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Kuching is preparing to host the 22nd ICOMOS General Assembly and Scientific Symposium from Oct. 17-24, placing living heritage, conservation and the pressures of development on the agenda of a major international gathering.

The event will be held in Malaysia for the first time, with workshops and other associated activities extending beyond the core assembly dates. Organisers describe a programme bringing conservation professionals together with discussions relevant to communities whose daily lives are part of heritage places.

The Oct. 17-24 dates are confirmed in ICOMOS' announcement. The organisation expects the broader gathering to involve about 2,000 cultural heritage experts from 130 countries. Those are advance expectations, rather than a verified attendance total.

The programme combines the organisation's governance work with a scientific symposium. Elections, resolutions and internal meetings determine ICOMOS' institutional direction, while lectures, panels and workshops examine conservation practice and the challenges facing heritage places.

Living Heritage And Digital Tools

A workshop on people-centred AI and digital twins for historic places is listed for Oct. 15 at Borneo Cultures Museum in the scientific programme. Its subjects include heritage values, community perspectives, climate-related risks and digital documentation.

The programme also covers photogrammetry, 3D scanning and aerial photography as ways to acquire and process information about places. These technologies form part of the proposed discussion; a listing does not establish that a particular site has already been documented or protected using them.

The symposium's later sessions include living historical cities and Indigenous participation in the World Heritage system. Such subjects extend conservation beyond the appearance of a building to questions of participation, interpretation and the relationship between a place and the people connected with it.

That focus matters for a host city with its own cultural landscape. An international conference can provide a setting for comparison and exchange, but its presence does not itself confer World Heritage status or approve a development project.

Governance Runs Alongside The Symposium

The assembly will elect 20 board members for the 2026-2029 term, then choose a president, secretary-general, treasurer and five vice presidents from that group, according to the official statutory-meetings information.

Electronic voting is to run partly before the in-person assembly and continue during its days in Kuching. Voting is restricted to designated national-committee voting members; registering for a conference session does not automatically provide that role.

Preparatory online information sessions covered proposed resolutions, financial reports and the voting process. The sequence explains why some formal activity has taken place before the main in-person dates and why the full programme should not be reduced to a single opening day.

The programme overview lists meetings at several venues, including Borneo Convention Centre Kuching, Borneo Cultures Museum and city hotels. Workshops, public events and social functions have different access arrangements, so participants should consult the applicable session and registration details.

For Malaysia's heritage community, the gathering brings international conservation debates into a local setting. Its lasting value will depend on the professional exchanges, decisions and practical work that follow, while the upcoming programme establishes the scope of the discussions to take place.