From listing to safeguarding: New momentum for ICH in Jersey

TouchTD at Jersey’s new ICH exhibition

TouchTD has just returned from another energising trip to Jersey, where we’ve been helping the island’s ICH story continue to gather pace. Our visit focused on the newly opened ICH exhibition at Jersey Museum, and on starting up discussions with a lively mix of practitioners and community members ready to think about what comes next for Jersey’s living heritage.

Celebrating Jersey’s first twelve ICH expressions

The new exhibition at Jersey Museum presents striking visual material and interpretive text showcasing the first twelve expressions of Jersey’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), identified through last year’s island-wide inventorying process. Across several months, TouchTD worked closely with communities and practitioners at pop-up events and meetings across Jersey, helping to surface living heritage practices and support their inclusion on the inventory.

For a reminder of how the inventorying process took shape on the ground, take a look back at our earlier blog post: Expanding the inventory of ICH in Jersey

From this process, the first 12 expressions listed are:

  • The Breeding of the Jersey Cow
  • The Performing of Jèrriais
  • Crafting the Cabbage Stick
  • Maritime Navigation Using Transit Marks
  • Vraicking
  • Governing, Legislating and Policing
  • Apple and Pear Production, and Their Products
  • The Surfing Scene
  • The Commemoration of Occupation and Liberation (1940–1945)
  • Selling “Hedge Veg”
  • Low Water Fishing
  • Bellringing in the Western Parishes

Together, they form an exciting, diverse snapshot of Jersey’s rich living heritage landscape.

Sparking conversations on safeguarding

Now that Jersey’s first ICH expressions have been identified and inventoried, the project’s focus is shifting toward how to sustain and safeguard ICH in Jersey. Strengthening collaboration across the many different groups involved will be a key part of this next phase. WIth this goal in mind, TouchTD was keen to facilitate a space for ICH practitioners and other interested parties to come together. A round-table discussion felt like the most natural way to gather the diverse range of voices, in order to encourage open conversation and shared reflections on the process so far, and begin shaping ideas for safeguarding together.

Connecting across sectors

Bringing such a wide mix of stakeholders round the same table really highlighted the exciting, and still emerging, nature of the ICH project. Many of those who joined us – from local ICH practitioners to creative groups, businesses, and government and non-governmental agencies – don’t often get the chance to cross paths, especially in a heritage context. Building a shared understanding of ICH and how it can weave across different sectors will therefore be essential in helping Jersey’s rich living heritage thrive. And the appetite was definitely there. Conversations quickly turned to new and creative ways of championing ICH, from rethinking how it shows up in public spaces to exploring imaginative, artistic routes for sharing local knowledge.

Bringing together ICH voices at the round-table discussion


Joining up the different ICH voices also gave TouchTD a chance to hear where expressions shared experiences, and where their challenges differed. Participants spoke about common pressures, from raising the visibility of ICH practices, to finding meaningful ways to support transmission to younger generations. Yet many challenges to safeguarding were also rooted in the specific contexts and realities of each expression. For TouchTD, this reinforces a key principle: there is no single template for safeguarding ICH. Approaches to sustaining Jersey’s living heritage will need to be flexible and community-led, rather than relying on any ‘off-the-shelf’ model.

Recognising the social value of ICH

Safeguarding ICH isn’t only about continuity; it’s also a chance to spark new kinds of connection and wellbeing across Jersey. Around the table, TouchTD listened as participants spoke about shifting feelings of identity on the island, with concerns about younger people feeling detached from place and community, alongside a growing desire among others to reconnect with the land and local traditions. Across the expressions, new opportunities are already coming into view: the wellbeing boost of learning the Jèrriais language, enthusiasm among younger generations to step into agricultural practices, and creative ways of engaging people with Jersey’s vraicking tradition. Taken together, this shows the potential for living heritage to play a bigger role in strengthening social connection across the island, in ways that also echo wider government priorities.

Keeping the momentum going

Chatting with participants, it was clear that people felt a real value in getting the opportunity to step beyond individual practices and meet together. Going forward, it will be important to keep these channels of communication open to help inspire real collective action from across the island.

Stay in touch!

For more information on the ongoing ICH journey in Jersey, visit Jersey Heritage’s dedicated webpages:

https://www.jerseyheritage.org/research-and-collections/research-ich/

Or send your ICH queries directly to: ich@jerseyheritage.org

Keep following Touch TD, through our website and Instagram page, for more updates as Jersey’s ICH story continues to evolve!