Design and Heritage

Abstract

This article examines how design practices mediate and reinterpret Tunisian cultural heritage within higher education contexts. Rather than treating heritage as a fixed collection of objects or traditions, the study approaches it as a dynamic cultural process shaped through representation, participation, and media translation. The research investigates how student design projects transform heritage into visual, spatial, audiovisual, and interactive experiences capable of engaging contemporary audiences while preserving cultural meaning. The study is based on a six-week research-through-design workshop conducted with first-year master’s students in multimedia, audiovisual communication, and cinema studies. Twenty-five projects centered on Tunisian tangible and intangible heritage composed the corpus. The analysis focuses particularly on two case studies: an immersive audiovisual reinterpretation of Stambeli and Ludoria: The Doll’s Riddles, a transmedia educational game inspired by the symbolic universe of the Aroussa de Sejnane. Through visual semiotics, pedagogical observation, and reflective analysis, this article identifies three interconnected operations within the projects: mediation, reinterpretation, and transformation. The findings demonstrate that design education can function as a critical space, where heritage is neither frozen within preservationist approaches nor reduced to decorative cultural imagery. Instead, the projects reveal how contemporary design practices can support culturally situated and participatory forms of heritage transmission while remaining attentive to memory, symbolic complexity, and ethical representation.