Interpreting Heritage.

A heritage site or object is something that we go and encounter as a tourist, a visitor, a curious observer. It has come down from the past and is being preserved for us to encounter. It is usually being preserved because it is regarded as significant for some reason, and each of us finds some kind of significance when we visit it. These simple observations give us the major categories of heritage interpretation, as we seek to make all the elements of this encounter explicit.

1. Historical Provenance.

The object or site in which we are interested has taken some particular trajectory through time to meet us. We will want to know what that trajectory was. We can ask the same set of questions of an object (some item of clothing, an ornament, a weapon, etc.) of a building (a country house, a castle, an old barn, etc.) or of a landscape (strip field remnants, working woodlands, etc.):

• Origins - who made it? when was it made? why was it made? what was its purpose? who owned it? what materials and tools were used?
• Intervening uses - how has it come down to us? did its uses change? was it modified? did it change hands? what events and activities have been connected with it?
• Present use - who looks after it now? why? why has it been made available for us? is it still in use? has anything contemporary been added to it?

2. Cultural Associations.

The object or site will have had some original meaning, and it will be related to other objects of the same sort, or will fit into a system of objects (e.g. an old farming implement will be one of a set of tools for doing a range of jobs). We will understand the meaning of it when we have a general understanding of its structure and design (e.g. we understand a castle when we understand the feudal system and medieval warfare and politics). Again we can ask a general set of questions that can apply across a range of heritage:

• Design - why were objects of this sort designed the way they were? how did this design evolve? what system of objects was it designed to fit into? how did such designs change over time?
• Meaning - what did such objects mean to those who used them? how did they depict them or write about them? whose lives were shaped by them? has their meaning changed over time? what have subsequent reactions and uses been?
• Present associations - do we still have a use for such objects? do we use similar designs? how do they fit into our lives? how do we make sense of them? how much do we know about them?

3. Exhibition Practices.

We are seeing a heritage object in particular ways. It has been set up to be seen by tourists or during leisure activities. We have to go through particular routines to see it (e.g. paying to go into a museum, popping into a free gallery, taking in a heritage landscape on a picnic). We go out of our way to see it for particular reasons, and because we get some kind of 'payback' from it. We can ask questions about this process:

• Exhibition - how is the object being shown? do we have to pay? how does it fit into our daily or leisure activities? what are we doing as we look at it? how are we controlled as we look at it?
• Location - where is the object sited? what other objects are people seeing on this or similar visits? how does the exhibition practice use the location?
• Experience - what does the object give the visitor? why do people visit it? what is done to give 'added value' to the experience?

4. Personal Associations.

Probably each person gets something different from a heritage visit. What they get will depend on who they are and what prior experience they have had. It is worth probing such matters of personal meaning:

• Identity - to whom does this object mean something? what do people have to learn or be to get something out of it? how does the object help form the identities of its visitors?
• Difference - do visitors tend to be from one age, ethnic group or nationality? if so, why? if not, why not?

In your groups, go back to your shortlist of possible group assignment subjects. Do you know enough about your subject to be able to sketch out answers to any of these questions? If not, can you form a plan to find out the answers? Use your sketches and plans to revise your shortlist and make a final choice. When you have done this, do the same for your individual assignment shortlist.

Now you have a better understanding of how a heritage object relates to its audience, go back to the list of advantages of multimedia interpretation you read last week. For both group assignment and individual assignment, draw up an initial plan of how you propose to use multimedia to bring a new dimension to the interpretation of the heritage objects on your shortlists.