Cultural Heritage Interpretation: Engaging the Public with Meaningful Experiences

Posted on Nov 26, 2024 in Arts and Humanities

Unit 7: The Diffusion of Cultural Heritage: The Interpretation of Heritage

One of the basic functions of heritage institutions is to inform the public about the goods they guard, making them accessible to everyone. Using Social Heritage: Diffusion – Spread is not only communicating information about the good, but stimulating reflection, provoking engagement with the public who come to encounter it. For this, we have a tool: interpretation. It is an act of communication through which we convey something and make it understandable (there are often difficulties).

1. The Concept of Interpretation

“The interpretation of equity is the ‘art’ in situ to reveal the meaning of the natural and cultural heritage to the public who visit these places in their leisure time, so visitors will appreciate it and take a positive approach to their conservation.” The interpretation of natural and cultural resources, tangible or intangible, related to a particular place, aims to boost the equity in its original context. Interpretation provides a key reading of assets to provide visitors with meaning and experience. The origin of interpretation is American, first developed in U.S. national parks.

The work of Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage (1957), led to the definition of strategies for the parks, focusing not only on conservation but also on spreading its values to the public.

According to Tilden: Information is not interpretation. Interpretation is a form of revelation based on information, and its main aim is not training, but provocation.

Construction initially focused on natural areas. In Europe, the definitive introduction to interpretation occurred in the nineties, with the crisis of traditional museology (IV World Congress of Heritage Interpretation: Barcelona, 1995). The main conclusion: the need to plan interpretation from a sustainable development model of equity (balance: quality of heritage resources, quality of life for local people, and visitor experience). This environment created the Association for Heritage Interpretation (AIP, Spain), aiming to promote the professional development of interpretation in our country.

In Spain, actions initially focused on parks but are now widespread in archaeological sites, historic buildings, local museums, etc. Interpretation strategy has become associated with local development initiatives and regional levels. It is an essential tool for the social use of property and the basis for developing marketing policies and tourist exploitation of the territory. The relationship between interpretation and tourism is obvious (enriching visitor experience / economic injection). The General Plan for Cultural Property (Junta de Andalucia) includes an Interpretation Center Network.

2. Objectives of Interpretation

  • For Knowledge: What do we want visitors to know?
  • For Emotion: What do we want visitors to feel? (Personal experience to arouse curiosity, emotion… not limited to simple “absorption of knowledge.”)
  • For Behavior: What do we want people to do? (Awareness, respect for heritage.)

3. Interpretive Planning

Interpretive planning must deal with three basic premises:

  • The relationship between heritage and identity. How heritage can act as a generator of image and territorial identity.
  • The relationship between heritage and economics. How to ensure the profitability of investments in equity.
  • The relationship between heritage and society. To what extent the development of an equity offering will help improve the quality of life of the local population (and the quality of visitor experience).

Proposals for a heritage interpretation plan (Morales Miranda, 1998):

  1. Diagnosis of Reality: Do I need interpretation? Can it cause negative impacts? Will it improve the management of the property, monument, historic garden?
  2. Interpretive Planning:
    • Objectives.
    • Analysis of heritage resources (potentials, constraints…).
    • Analysis of the area tourism: resources, potential visitors…
    • Transmitting messages (script interpretation).
    • Choice of means of interpretation and necessary equipment (panels, guides, audio guides, new technologies…).
  3. Specific Design of Equipment and Facilities: Creative process. Performed by specialists, according to the previous plan. Preparation of the speech, the image we want to convey…
  4. Execution of Works and Implementation of Programs: Personal budget, costs, grants, other funding.
  5. Heritage Presentation.
  6. Visitor Evaluation: Fundamental to see if the interpretation is successful, the objectives are met, and to improve in the future.

As I. Alaix (1997, article in e-learning) suggests, an interpretation plan should be developed in three phases:

  1. Analysis of Reality: Resources, demand (internal and external).
    1. Understand the mentality of the population of the territory (main features of identity).
    2. Create an inventory of heritage resources and analyze their potential to attract visitors from both a tourism and educational perspective.
    3. Calculate the potential audience. Assess visitor motivation and site accessibility.
    4. Evaluate the available or potentially available human and financial resources (e.g., rural, possible training for “retraining”).
  2. Conceptualization:
    1. Set objectives for the interpretation plan: social, economic, educational, conservation…
    2. Identify topics for interpretation. Fundamental: specificity and content of the equity offering (script and title). Avoid generic topics, providing “keys” to discover an area, learn, and feel emotions…
  3. Program Performance:
    1. Define display systems. This largely depends on resource availability and property type (e.g., well-preserved palace – tour / archaeological site, historical event – Interpretation Center).
    2. Additional services: Host-information systems for visitors, parking, signage, restaurant, product marketing…
    3. Outline the budget and the cost-income estimate. Profitability? Possible sources of finance.
    4. Determine the system of supply management (public, private, mixed).
    5. Promotion and marketing strategy of a “cultural product”.

4. Spaces for Heritage Presentation

We can distinguish three main spaces for heritage presentation:

A) Museums

. Museums are specialized cultural spaces, from a museum and museum project, assemble a set of movable cultural property on one or more topics, in order to preserve, investigate and dissemination, seeking a share cultural, scientific and recreational citizens and visitors. -Annual programs of action: research, acquisition of funding strategies, outreach, exhibitions, loans, museums … different presentation strategies used their property (outside their original context):-The classic permanent exhibition. Proposed passive contemplation (not without interest), following a speech (chronological, thematic …). The sample cumulative objects without any speech. Scenic-exposure. Pedagogical discourses. Overexposure. Revitalisation of the cultural offerings of museums, cultural and tourism itself. Sometimes, great success. Exposures can be of several types: permanent, temporaryand itinerant .- As auxiliary tools display in museums, we must emphasize the tour guides, catalogs, workshops, tours, and scenic resource use, technological and audiovisual B) The heritage site. Archaeological sites monuments, buildings or environments heritage elements (historic). -The various types of presentation can be summarized in the three:-a basic level. Simply matching the visit at a physical level, with or without interpretive signage. -Supplementation through a permanent exhibition showing the work of research / …-musealization restoration. You can include an interpretation center. C) The interpretive centers.-Interpretation centers are often the mainstay of this methodological approach we call heritage interpretation. -Unlike the museums, not intended for the collection, preservation and study of original objects. The interpretive center is important that we can receive the basic knowledge and organize our time to go after the heritage sites of the most effective way possible-as a strategy of presentation used primarily scenic exposure. Support technological and audiovisual items. Through an attractive, accessible to all audiences and especially varied and original, you can attract the public. 5 .- The communication with the public. Interpretation resources.-To develop effective communication to the heritage and visitors to enjoy a cultural experience of quality must be met certain requirements:-Bringing heritage to broad and diverse public sector, taking into account the different profiles it supports scientific research or interpretive medium RESOURCES: No Personal signage, publications, exhibitions, audio guides .. Personal: guided tours, animations or demonstrations (activities).-Guided Tours. The artist plays a basic role in the presentation of heritage. ‘Try an attractive and participatory communication. As a rule, avoid technical references and the use of scientific concepts. Brevity, simplicity, claridad.-Other resources for interpretation and presentation of heritage: ‘Publications. Different levels: brochures, pocket guides, workbooks, case studies, guide books …-models and other media (video, audio guides)-Scenery, environments. Realization of activities: workshops, demonstrations, festivals ….; possibility of direct experience.