Heritage and Healthy Societies Conference: Impressions

I spent last week at the Heritage and Healthy Societies Conference, hosted by the Center for Heritage & Society at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I tend to go to practitioners’ conferences, so this was great with its mostly academic focus on research. Here are a few impressions I brought home with me [1]: The … Continue reading Heritage and Healthy Societies Conference: Impressions →

Interpretation and Journeys Into the Past

According to my visitor interviews to date [1], the key benefits visitors get from visiting a heritage site are ‘being in the place where history happened’, ‘imagining what it was like’, and ‘[expressing] national or personal identity’[2]. This made me think of the title of David Lowenthal’s book: The Past is a Foreign Country [3]. … Continue reading Interpretation and Journeys Into the Past →

Why We Need Good Interpretive Planning Processes

Two things recently have made me think again about what should be included in a ‘good’ interpretive planning process. One was hearing at a meeting that first should come the decisions about the content, and then we’ll ‘add on’ the interpretation, suggesting an understanding of interpretation as, well, an add-on, a media solution. The other … Continue reading Why We Need Good Interpretive Planning Processes →

Are we inclusively excluding people from museums and heritage sites?

I’ve recently read English Heritage’s consultation on under-represented heritages [1] and it got me thinking, yet again, about target audiences. Here are some of the points that struck a chord with me: We don’t want [insert under-represented heritage here] sites In fact, one respondent called this idea ‘horrible’ (p. 10). In other words, they didn’t … Continue reading Are we inclusively excluding people from museums and heritage sites? →

From Snowden to Dogsbodies: How much ‘relate’ is needed to make good interpretation?

When I reviewed the visitor interviews I did last year for my PhD research, I was amazed at the wide associations visitors made. They talk about Edward Snowden, the attack on Lee Rigby, the experience of getting chased by a local gamekeeper for collecting nuts in a wood just after the Second World War. They … Continue reading From Snowden to Dogsbodies: How much ‘relate’ is needed to make good interpretation? →

Taking stock on leaving St Albans, or: From Site Staff to Consultant

Last week I left my job as Audience Development Manager for St Albans Museums Service to join Jura Consultants as a Senior Consultant. The change has prompted a few reflections, not the least around what it means to me to go from being a site-based member of staff to becoming a consultant. There are a … Continue reading Taking stock on leaving St Albans, or: From Site Staff to Consultant →

Interpretation, using questions, and preferred readings

I recently read Sharon MacDonald’s fascinating book Difficult Heritage. Negotiating the Nazi past in Nuremberg and beyond [1]. There were a lot of thought-provoking observations in the book, but the one I’d like to focus on today are the guided tours of the Nazi rally grounds. Geschichte fuer Alle organises these tours. Their website explains … Continue reading Interpretation, using questions, and preferred readings →

Community Engagement at Museums and Heritage Sites

Last week we had to cancel a training day on community engagement because of low uptake [1]. The training co-ordinator suggested that community engagement may still not be seen to be important to the work of museums. He may be right, but I very much hope he isn’t. After all, there is, and has been … Continue reading Community Engagement at Museums and Heritage Sites →