#BIGSTUFF2025
BIG STUFF 2025 CONFERENCE
SKILLS, MACHINES & HERITAGE IN MOTION!
OCTOBER 14TH TO 17TH, 2025
SKILLS AND MACHINES
- A LIVING PARTNERSHIP
During the conference we focus on the symbiotic relationship between skills and machinery. Industrial heritage encompasses not just large-scale installations and historic machinery, but also the people, skills, and knowledge required to operate, maintain and showcase this mechanical legacy. As the generations of workers and volunteers who have learned to control, calibrate and repair these machines retire, their invaluable expertise is at risk of being lost.
The conference wants to explore effective methods for passing critical and endangered knowledge to new staff and volunteers, ensuring the continuity of this heritage. We would also like to broaden the scope, looking at ways to make old technologies resonate with new generations. How do we teach handskills to a generation brought up on automation? How do we connect older Big Stuff to important new themes such as lower carbon emissions, lower pollution, circular re-use and right to repair?
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BRIDGING THE WORLD THROUGH HERITAGE MACHINERY
Participants are taking part in the main conference in Ghent, at the Asia-Pacific Hub in Perth, Australia, and online. This hybrid format brings together heritage machinery enthusiasts from around the world, fostering real-time knowledge exchange and collaboration. By combining in-person and digital participation, the conference offers an inclusive platform for global connection, innovation, and sustainable engagement.
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Across time zones and continents, discussions are taking shape, ideas are being shared, and new professional relationships are forming. From the historic setting of Ghent to the active community in Perth, the conference links experts, researchers, and enthusiasts in a shared effort to preserve, understand, and advance the field of heritage machinery.
CONTACT
Minnemeers 10
B-9000 Ghent
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Tel. +32 9 323 65 13
Email: bigstuff2025@industriemuseum.be
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Driven by the Museum of Industry and its knowledge centre ETWIE, the Big Stuff Heritage conference 2025 is fueled by key partners, the University of Canberra, ICS and the Big Stuff Heritage Board. A network of supporting partners further strengthens the event's foundation and reach.