Knowledge & expertise.
Creating rewarding visitor experiences.
Interpretation - ‘Relating, revealing, provoking’ – creating a successful experience for both organisations and visitors.’
Visitors come to heritage sites and museums for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it’s to see a unique piece of art work or to learn about an artefact from the past. Sometimes it is to get out of the rain or to spend time with a friend or loved one.
Whatever the reason why people come, one thing’s for sure, we want them to keep coming back! But you also have something to say, a reason why your organisation is working so hard to safeguard a particular aspect of heritage. Interpretive theory and practice seeks to help with that communication and experiential process.
Interpretation provides a planning and implementation tool. It does this by considering the visitor and their needs, but also by working with an organisation to plan how best to communicate the significance of a place or objects, to its intended visitors. All this happens within the realistic parameters of the organisation itself – so however big or small the organisation is, this same process can apply.
Knowledge & expertise
Interpretation….in practice
‘For me, the principles of interpretation run through every piece of work that I do.’
Three things underpin my planning process when I undertake a new project, of whatever size:
1. The Visitor – who are they and what motivates them to come? The more you can understand about them – their social, physical and intellectual ‘context’ – the more you can create ‘pathways’ for them to access the messages you as the organisation are putting out about the significance of your site or collection.
2. The Resource – what is it that is so significant about the heritage resource? Why is it valued? Why might people be interested in it? What is unique about it and how does it link to universal concepts that visitors might relate to?
3. The Realities – understanding the objectives and realities of the organisation. What are the ‘mechanics’ of the organisation – staffing/budgets/physical space/ sustainability? What is the basis of the organisation – its culture and philosophy, and how can the interpretation designed compliment that?
Once I have answered all those questions, the solution, or rather the interpretive tools that will enhance the experience for visitors, will become clear.
Then it is a case of implementing a plan to ensure all the deliverables – be they audio tour, interpretation panel, guided tour, exhibition etc. – are completed on time and to budget. This involves project management skills familiar across many industries. It might also involve writing briefs, commissioning artists or sourcing equipment, and working with other practitioners to create a high quality result.
Past project.
The Japanese Garden, Cowden.
The Japanese Garden, Cowden
The Japanese Garden, nr Dollar, Clackmannanshire is a new visitor attraction, centred around the restoration of a Japanese Garden, first planted by then owner Miss Ella Christie in 1908. The Garden has been going through a process of restoration since 2014, opening to the public fully in 2018.
As a new visitor attraction they were looking for me to help them develop their interpretation, to provide visitors with an understanding of the history of the site as well as context about Japanese gardening culture.
The Process - creating an audio tour
Between 2020-21 I was asked to create an audio tour of the site so people which visitors could tour the garden with or listen to off site.
To create the tour, I worked in partnership with GeoTourist, an online app which provides site and city tours for people to access directly through their mobile phone. The benefit for the Garden was that not only could people access the tour in the Garden itself where it would explain key historical and cultural points as they walked around it, but it would also raise awareness of the Garden amongst tourists and help build a sustainable visitor base for this new attraction. The project involved historical research into the garden and Japanese cultural significance, script writing, recruiting and recording with volunteers from the garden, and close liaison with the GeoTourist team to ensure the audio and images were App compatible.
The outcome
The audio tour was launched in September 2020 and has had over 2000 views so far. It is available to be used in both the garden itself but also by anyone around the world, helping to promote the garden and develop new audiences. Feedback from visitors will be sought during the 2021 season.
I am now developing interpretation panels to be incorporated in a new building in the garden, and these hope to be installed by the time the garden opens its doors in 2021.
‘Interpretation is a mission based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the meanings inherent in the resource.’ (National Association for Interpretation 2019).