A Eureka Moment (Part 1)

Reading a recent Experiential Interpretation manifesto by Steve Van Matre, I was especially struck by a very thought -provoking section called Revisiting Tilden, about how the writings of the father of park interpretation should be interpreted and how they have been applied for years in a short-sighted way. Because of this, our field is still caught in a former-thinking paradigm trap that we need to escape from, in order to be relevant and impactful now and going forward.

As the experiential interpretation essay points out, communicating messages through a presentation approach whether monologue or dialogue, personal or non-personal, is not fulfilling the important task of counteracting visitors “being out of touch” with our natural heritage and “out of reach” with our cultural heritage.

Let’s explore some of the highlights of this snappy 18 -page hard - hitting manifesto analysis that lays out where the interpretive field needs to change and improve, in order to truly enrich the visitor experience at our natural and cultural heritage sites.  Ah, but first some background, some reminiscing and some chewing on Tilden from a new context.

Revisiting the Genesis of Interpretation

The writings of Freeman Tilden, that pioneer in interpretation, captured the underlying philosophy of the field as it began to take shape. I dug out my dog-eared copy of Interpreting Our Heritage, re-discovered many gems in this seminal work, revived a few memories, and came away telling myself “Always take time for Tilden.”

“The interpreter’s main reliance will be upon a proficiency in what we call rhetoric; that is the art of writing or speaking. Especially, it implies skill in the presentation of ideas.” Unfortunately, this is part of the paradigm presentation trap. Tilden comes from the foundation that interpretation is an “educational activity,” a better way to inform visitors “…whether written, oral or projected,” by “…revealing meanings and relationships.”  The 1967 forward to the 2nd edition states that the interpreter seeks to open a person’s mind and communicate ideas. This is all very cerebral and misses other human components that are essential to forming a sense of place/relationship between visitor and an heritage site.

Though Tilden’s principles expanded on how to do this effectively the core premise relating to the art and delivery of “idea” communication took precedence with interpreters of the 1950’s and has persisted into the 21st Century.

This attempt to improve the publics’ understanding, appreciation and awareness of an heritage site came from the teaching perspective of a passionate person thinking he had to inspire a somewhat passive receiver with meaningful knowledge.

Since the days of unidirectional education we have evolved towards a more relational approach and respect for diverse visitors and situational knowledge. Yet we still see the heavy influence of the communication mindset involving a sender-message-receiver model.

Getting Unstuck

The continual movement towards more active participation and engagement, with a greater sense of collaboration and sharing is regretfully still in its infancy, and this is problematic. We in the field continue to talk much more about crafting a message rather than creating an experience and this is also problematic. In the September/October 2020 issue of NAI’s Legacy magazine, the editor Paul Caputo, points out how the tenets of graphic design are quite similar to those of interpretation. He is exactly right and that is problematic. Interpretation and graphic design both address visual communication really well, yet the business of creating visceral, emotional and intellectual connections for an audience (or visitor) within an heritage site, needs to focus on much more than communication.

This is what was troubling me back in the 1970’s when I had my Eureka moment.

In the forward to the 2nd edition (1967) of Interpreting Our Heritage, there is a quote

“Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.” ”

— Anatole France

I had attached that quote to my desk as a constant reminder of what to strive for, as an interpreter with our National Park Service in Canada, in the 1970’s.

Then in the last paragraph in Tilden’s last chapter, called Vistas of Beauty, a powerful yet haunting line appears:

“It is the duty of the interpreter to jog our memories to appreciate beauty.”

— Freeman Tilden

The thing is, I was never quite sure how to do the necessary “jogging.” I always had this nagging feeling that there was something missing. “Creating the spark…” was more difficult than just being clever with words in a presentation or a conversation – trying to achieve this with forms of communication and mind engagement was missing the mark.

Jogging Memories of Beauty

Only when I attended an Acclimatization Workshop sponsored by The Institute for Earth Education in the mid 70’s and took part in an Earthwalk conducted by Steve Van Matre, did I finally grasp what was missing. I needed to focus on full body engagement and rich first-hand experiences with the natural or cultural site (for more background review our blog post this April 2020).

Photo credit Bill Reynolds

Suddenly engagement took on a whole new meaning and when I incorporated the Acclimatization principles being practiced, my naturalist walks started to have a deeper impact on people and connect them to the place on many more levels. I had begun to discover how to jog people’s memories of beauty.

There were many relationship learning principles that helped to guide me, however the most influential was- “Start where your learners are not where you are.” That had been the missing component when I designed my interpretive programmes. I needed to think more about experiences and less about “show and tell” presentation style walks, however incredibly edutaining they were.

This was truly a Eureka moment for me and at that point I decided to do my Master’s of Science in the Interpretive Services Program that Professor Van Matre led. Fast forward to the year 2009 and my first reading of his book Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience based on decades of experience and critical observation. My initial love of front-line interpreting in parks and nature centres combined with all my subsequent planning and design work on visitor experiences gelled when I dove into this book (read our March 2018 blog post).

Bill as part of a visitor experience assessment

Coming from my visitor experience background I was deeply entrenched in the customer service and retail business tenets of the Experience Economy that Joseph Pine II and James Gilmour had espoused in their highly influential book of the same name.  I could see the applicability for heritage site visitors where the concept of providing a service (interpretive or visitor) was needing a boost upward into the art of creating an experience.

Van Matre’s book was timely and involved not only heritage site purpose principles but also service business improvement principles. By refocusing on site mission and BIG picture universal processes that shape our world and connect people with place, he was reuniting essential elements for heritage success. It appeared that these were getting forgotten in the rush to increase attendance and revenue. Understanding the needs of the visitor’s leisure journey was important but not at the expense of the values of the site being explored.

Hooking the interest of visitors based on the place’s mission was necessary and needed to be emphasized over simply catering to visitor interests. Finding the happy marriage of both was stressed as critical for visitor support, management support and the long-term rejuvenated future role for interpretation.

We will continue this story in Eureka Moment Part 2 and resolve how to design for engagement to release us from the communication paradigm and presentation trap many interpreters find themselves in. Being in touch and within reach with our diverse set of visitors is going to require more than mind connections and imparting knowledge to achieve awareness and appreciation. We will also circle back to the Experiential Interpretation manifesto that kickstarted this strategic assessment.

Putting Interpretive Design Ideas Into Practice — Phase I

Ready to Re-Imagine Your Visitor Plan?

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

So let’s say you’ve read the Van Matre book, Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience (IDADE), you are excited about the content and ideas, and are willing to try this approach for visitor planning and interpretive design. However, maybe there are some concerns about how to pull all the pieces in the book together in a coordinated way. Or perhaps you’re wondering if it is possible to implement all the ideas by yourself. Well, we agree there is a lot of information in the book and it can be a daunting task. Frankly, though the book is a game changer in planning and design, at times it needs some interpretation to grasp the meanings and the best way to implement the process.

Our goal over the next few blog posts is to share the process we used during our latest project at Métis Crossing. Hopefully this example will provide some concrete insights into how to implement the ideas, structures, and help clarify the content in IDADE when developing visitor interpretive experiences. Perhaps it will even stimulate some ideas in your planning and design processes or encourage you to contact us if you have questions or comments.

Métis Crossing – Background Information

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Métis Crossing is a cultural heritage centre created by the Métis Nation of Alberta, Canada located near Smokey Lake (about 70 miles/114 km northeast of Edmonton). The director wanted to re-imagine what the site could offer beyond the camping and recreational area, several historic buildings and an attractive river front. They were willing to take a chance on a new approach that emphasized experiential interactive invitations as the heart of their interpretive offerings for visitors.

By the time EID was involved in this project, construction on a new Cultural Gathering Centre had begun. This building would be a welcoming point, a place to tell the Métis story, a gathering place for the Métis, an events facility, plus exhibits, classroom space, a gift shop and a café. This would be the first fully designed and operated Métis Cultural Gathering Centre in Alberta. Our work focused on introducing an interpretive design process to the staff so they had a framework to develop and incorporate interpretive programming for visitors.

Photo Credit: Métis Nation of Alberta, Canada/Métis Crossing

But first, let me tell you a story. Imagine you are a people that have lived and prospered for thousands of years in a natural community rich with the gifts of nature. Suddenly people from another part of the earth invade and colonize the land in their image. You are disenfranchised, oppressed, humiliated and forced to give up much of your land and culture. You are barely acknowledged as human or worthy of notice. At times the fear and shame is so great that you to hide your lineage, even from your children, because you fear they too will be the targets of discrimination. You feel hidden in plain sight. Yet despite it all, your culture, stories and language endure and persevere. 

Photo Credit: Bill Reynolds

Then one day things begin to change. In the 1980s your country recognizes you as a distinct nation. Within a decade there are new agreements with the federal and provincial governments, lands and rights are restored and reparations are offered. All of a sudden the descendants of the colonists are more aware of the important role your people and culture played in the history of the colonized land – you no longer want to hide in plain sight.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

This, in brief, is the story of the Métis People and Culture in Canada. The Métis no longer hide in the shadows and they can proudly proclaim the importance of their culture and contributions to Canada. Métis Crossing is a place where the Métis can tell their story without the filter of provincial, federal or colonist viewpoints. Now imagine a couple of middle-aged non-Métis guys, one from Canada and one from the US, being asked to work on the Métis Crossing project with the Métis Nation. What an honor for EID to be asked and included.

This project had 3 distinct planning phases:

·      Expectations & Engaging the Community: Digging into the WHY

·      Planning Site Outcomes: Preparing for the Visitors to Arrive –The WHATS, WHO & WHERE

·      Planning Visitor Experiences: Getting Folks onto the Interpretive Dance Floor - The WAYS & HOWS

Photo Credit: Métis Nation of Alberta/Métis Crossing

Expectations and Engaging the Community: Digging into the WHY

We approached this project as Interpretive Designers and Planners with a coaching philosophy, not as expert consultants in leisure, education or interpretation. Our view was holistic. We would not write the plan; we would provide the scaffolding. The design process from IDADE helped integrate the mission and visitor outcomes with the buildings, exhibits, paths, workshops and other experiences. Though natural processes played an important role in the natural landscape and Métis life, this project focused on the cultural aspects of the Métis and how best to share their story with all people. It was equally important to deepen cultural ties for the Métis wanting to visit the site.

A four- step method was used when presenting the interpretive process: Model-Practice-Feedback-Revise. This allowed the Métis Crossing staff to create their own planning document. A document that is useful now and in the future.

Setting Expectations

The IDADE book doesn’t address expectations directly, but it is something that EID considers. The importance of clear expectations and communication when working with others is vital. It reduces frustrations and ensures that time will not be wasted pursuing issues that the planner is not responsible for. Our preference is to work closely with the architects, landscape designers, business and media planners, marketers, exhibitors, etc. on the project to ensure interpretive outcomes are integrated and reinforced throughout the visitor experience.

EID likes to determine a few areas of clarity before starting a project. We need to know:

·      how narrow or wide our scope is in the project.

·     who is coordinating the project and integrating the various parts, and if EID is needed to assist in that role.

·      the list of people we are going to directly work with and a list of key people we need to keep informed of our progress.

·     about project timelines, deadlines and what benchmarks are needed to determine progress.

·      that we can set up regular meetings with staff to work on the interpretive process.

·     what other meetings or presentations EID should attend that are key to staying informed about the overall scope of the project.

Here’s the most important things we wanted to remember during the project:

Our responsibility is to introduce a process that will be useful for the Métis Crossing staff long after we are gone. This is a Métis project and it is their right to do what works best for them. As coaches it is important to internalize that fact and focus on our goal: introducing a process through modeling, practicing, feedback, and revisions.

Engagement with the Métis Community

Photo Credit: Bill Reynolds

Before we started to work with the Métis Crossing staff on planning the experiences, we wanted to engage with a wide cross-section of the Métis community to ensure clarity and mutual buy-in to the site purpose and mission. We wanted to know WHY Métis Crossing was important and what the Métis wanted visitors to takeaway from a visit. A one day gathering was arranged with some elders of the community, the officers of the Métis Nation of Alberta, Métis Crossing staff, the Cultural Advisory Committee, and other organizations working with the Métis. This day was filled with excitement, tears, deep memories, and a bit of cautious optimism about working with “these two non-Métis, guys.”

Photo Credit: Bill Reynolds

What we discovered was the deep feelings the Métis have for this site that was once part of a larger Métis Homeland. The group shared their sense of pride and excitement at being able to tell the Métis story in their own way. We reiterated that we saw our role as coaches, not consultants or experts in education, leisure or interpretation. Our process offered scaffolding and feedback so the Métis Crossing staff could create a Métis plan for now and the future.

We then presented some key elements of our coaching plan. First, we introduced the 4 Hs – the Head, Heart, Hands and Hunger – four of the 15 steps Van Matre presents as an holistic approach to experiential planning and visitor takeaways. These 4 Hs are embedded in every experience and outcome.

• Head reflects the mental thinking we want the visitor to take home like factual awareness and conceptual understanding. (MEANINGFUL INFORMATION)

• Heart reflects the visceral emotions or feelings we want the visitor to take home like respect, awe, sorrow, pleasure, appreciation. (MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES)

• Hands reflects the physical doing of the visitor, so they take home a kinesthetic memory, like the beginning of a skill, along with a Métis related memento they have made or purchased. (TANGIBLE SKILLS & MEMORIES)

• Hunger reflects the need for food and drink as visitors taste both prepared dishes and items harvested from nature to help reinforce the site’s messages in a comfortable setting that engenders social interaction. (FLAVOURFUL DELIGHTS)

We also emphasized how our work with the staff would focus on designing visitor outcomes and experiential interpretive interactions.

After the full day session, Bill and I took the meaningful experiences and deep memories offered by the participants and created a list of Essences – important categories the Métis wanted visitors to know about.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

These were presented to a smaller, working group of Métis staff members who clarified and distilled our list. Over time six of the Essences were refined, finalized and approved by the Métis Crossing staff and Cultural Advisory Committee. 

•      Becoming a Nation: The Métis are a distinct Indigenous people proud to have persevered, and the Métis continue to play a significant role in the building of Canada.

•      Relations & Families: Enduring family and community bonds value kinship, inter-generational learning, and connections within the larger community.

•      Economic Life & Entrepreneurship: The Métis community adapted to changing market situations that required skilled labour as well as efficient acquisition and quicker movement of economically valuable goods.

•      Land & Water Relationships: A distinctive blend of nomadic & sedentary land and water relationships was influenced by, and developed through, the Métis connection to their environment.

•      Creative Expressions: Musical, artistic, culinary, and linguistic expressions evolved from the ethnogenesis of the Métis people.

•      Belief Systems: A spiritual world view that has historical basis due primarily to paternal Christian lineage blended with a belief and practice of connection to the natural world.

With a clear sense of the WHY of Métis Crossing and a set of Essences to help guide the development of visitor experiences, we were ready to begin the next step in the process:

Planning Site Outcomes: Preparing for the Visitors to Arrive –The WHATS, WHO & WHERE (Phase 2 of Putting Ideas Into Practice)

Photo Credit: Métis Nation of Alberta, Canada/Métis Crossing

What Makes a Happy Heritage Facility?

What Makes a Happy Heritage Facility?

credit: Bill Reynolds

Whether you are an interpretive or visitor centre, museum, art gallery, botanic garden, zoo, etc. and you are sharing a piece of world heritage (even the difficult stories), should we not aspire to exude a positive outlook -- not only for our visitors but also for our staff?

The inspiration for this subject matter comes from the recent opening of Denmark’s Happiness Museum in Copenhagen. “We want it to be somewhere we can reflect on the good things in life,” says Meik Wiking, head of the Institute for Lykkeforskning (Happiness Research Institute), the organization that is funding and organizing the museum. The plan is to offer insights into the history and science behind happiness through experiments and exhibitions -- from the science of smiling to the politics of a cheery disposition.

The museum has a great mission statement:

“Our hope is that guests will leave a little wiser, a little happier and a little more motivated to make the world a better place.” 

Now that’s a solid, relevant mission statement that EID can get behind.

How do we take inspiration from this think tank about well-being, happiness, and quality of life?  With the weight of COVID-19 and various human rights issues foremost in our minds everybody needs some mental health relief…especially now. But why not always make uplifting people’s spirits a valued policy in every interpretive facility and heritage site? What is your action plan moving forward to boost happiness at your site?

How many of us celebrated International Day of Happiness on March 20th? Full disclosure: I wasn’t even aware there was such a day until recently. “Well, NOT this year,” you are probably mumbling. But actually, isn’t it all the more important this year?

When dealing with a site’s “back of house”, learning architect Lianne Picot provides several crucial questions that lead to a more positive impact on the mental health of your organization and guides you in proactively dealing with the future normal.  (For even more details on “future normal” check out her entire post):

• What will you bring with you from before?

• What will you leave behind?

• What new ways of working and leading will you keep using?

• What will you do differently, value more, and care deeply about when you move forward?

She concludes: “This is the moment when you get to decide what your future story will be. Use it well. Soon enough, your future normal will begin to form—whether you had input on it or not—and this moment will be lost.  This is the time for being brave, and for standing up for the things that matter to you and your people. This is the time to lead.“

This also impacts “front of house” visitors and can easily be adapted to focus on them. Lianne’s process reminded me of a workshops I lead coaching people on making entrepreneurial and customer service changes at their site. Throughout the workshop we asked participants to jot down anything they were going to keep doing, stop doing and start doing to improve the visitor experience. This would be the core of their action plan — to delight the visitor.

EID stresses Engage, Inspire, and Delight as the holy trinity of interpretation and here are some images that begin to push us in the right direction when considering the Delight aspect of our work. First, our “delightful” persona needs to be expressed at all stages of the visitor journey -- pre-visit, visit, and post-visit.

Credit: Bill Reynolds

Even where you least expect it…Loyal blog readers may remember our New Year’s post titled “The Gift of Humour” where a delightful cat & mouse image had been wrapped around the base of a corner wall.  The philosophy would be that unexpected delightful moments are potentially around every corner.

Looking at your entrance signage…Take a page from the Happiness Museum where they us clever contouring of the letters in their name, on a strong yellow background, to create a happy face. Didn’t you feel a twitch at the side of your mouth when you first saw the image?  Certainly gave me a delightful, welcoming feeling. Smile and the whole world smiles with you.

Getting visitors in the door…If your storefront depends on innovative signage with a snappy invitation, then this retail operation did all the right things with this tongue-in-cheek questioning attitude. Even with captive visitors coming from a parking lot you should reinforce a welcoming, upbeat attitude.

Credit: Bill Reynolds

Check out this example…How often can we get our visitors in the right frame of mind, plus take the edge off, when helping them part with their hard-earned cash for a service as mundane as parking? Giving a high five and thanks to your visitor before they have entered and started their interpretive adventure is certainly an approach worth emulating. The images show the parking meter and two different info-taining side “banners” used in this urban park in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They sure know how to set the stage appropriately by informing the visitor of the good deed performed and the benefit gained.

credit: Bill Reynolds

Credit: Bill Reynolds

How about some video…Video cams are being used more often during enforced isolation, yet rarely have I encountered a fun and engaging personal appeal to “click the button”. Here are examples of two video scripts from the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, Alberta that show how to employ joyful wording as a way to entice you in while imparting factual information. Even the viewing time is worded in a very approachable, light-hearted manner:

“He's a bit shy most of the time but look closely beneath the coral and you may catch a glimpse of our brightly coloured Peacock Mantis Shrimp, Lyle!  Lyle belongs to the smashing group of mantis shrimps, whose unique smashing appendages accelerate at the same rate as a 22-calibre bullet. They use their appendages to break open crustacean and mollusk shells, but they will eat almost any living creature...which is why Lyle doesn’t have any roommates. Check-in between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Wednesdays to catch him snacking on shrimp or snails. Lyle's tank goes dark from 8 p.m. — 10 a.m. so he can get a little shut-eye.”

“Meet our Western Painted Turtles! We have two females (Frida Kahlo and Emily Carr) and two males (Rembrandt and Banksy). You can identify the sex by the larger size and more domed shell of the females and the flatter shell and longer tails of the males. Check back between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday for feeding time.

P.S. Turtles gotta sleep! The lights go out from 8:00 p.m. — 8:00 a.m.”

Do you get a sense that this museum might be an easy-going place to find out about STUFF? Let’s all aim to remove the mundane. Make a promise to yourself to embark on a mundane-removing crusade around your site!

Mirthful quotes sprinkled around your site can add to the positive feeling that is so important for visitors to pick up on. Here is one from the Happiness Museum web site which could easily find a home somewhere in their building (By the way…some of the best quotes I have encountered have been engraved in sidewalks).

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

Oscar Wilde

Playful Signage…Taking a playful role with signage is not used nearly enough and humour is much more effective at getting our point across and getting people to notice. For example, we know everyone at some point needs to relieve themselves during the visit and a light-hearted approach with signage provides an opportunity to bring a smile to the visitor’s face.

Careful now…How about using humour to grab visitors’ attention when you want them to notice or take warning, as in the all too common advisory regarding a potentially dangerous wet floor? This banana peel slip-up is a great example of an effective and creative us of signage at a Mexican leisure attraction called SENSES.

Credit: Bill Reynolds

How can you create the greatest happiness return for your visitor? If you read a new report, Wellbeing Adjusted Life Years, you fill find some tips in planning the common currency of delight across economic, social, and environmental domains.

A gentle bottom-line reminder…look for happiness every day, delight in life, and do not take yourself too seriously.

When the Normal is Experienced as Something Special

When the Normal is Experienced as Something Special

(Guest Post by Angus Forbes)

"Where are you from?" is one of the first questions we are asked when we introduce ourselves. Our home place is a strong identity factor and it bonds us with others who are also connected with it in some way. Most likely, our home place has also influenced the way we are. There is one thing that absolutely everyone living in a place has in common with each other... and that is the place itself. This is cause enough to celebrate both place and each other! (How we define a ‘place’ is another question.) Through denying us access to more exotic places, the Covid19 lockdown has challenged us all to find more value in our immediate locality.  

Becoming and staying aware of what makes our home-place different or special is not so easy, but it can start a virtuous circle which benefits both its human and non-human components. We humans enjoy a positive identity reinforcement and in return we may choose to take more care of its source. Parents and kids at my son’s forest kindergarten, for instance, comb the surrounding woods twice a year for litter. This kind of care is not always the case. Oddly enough, ‘stakeholders’ often feel that they have a stake in the use of a resource, but not necessarily in its stewardship. Our familiarity with our surroundings can breed disinterest or even contempt. We see the same landscape features so often that it can take a visitor or newcomer to point out to us how special these features are. And even then, we may need some convincing. Our surroundings are our ground zero -- our normal. 

So, how can interpreters help strengthen this identification with locality and help visitors find something special in the normal, everyday place?

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Sensitisation to, and celebration of, the normal are for me what identity-building design is all about. Here are some techniques for the practitioner to stimulate new interest in the familiar.  They emerged from my work in landscape architecture and are applicable in most fields of interpretive design.

1. Distill: remove extraneous paraphernalia until the essence of the place shines forth. Our prize-winning design for the front of Schönefeld Airport in Berlin was based on a reductive approach. We pared down the fencing, paving and signage which had accumulated over the years until all that was left were the pines and the ‘beautiful field,’ after which the place is named.

2. Perspective change: set up an unfamiliar viewpoint. Get up close to the tiny things and get an overview on the big ones.  This ‘high-chair’ allows a panoramic view over fields of rushes in the Elbe flood-plains. Nearby we embedded its twin, a ‘low-chair’, giving people an immersive experience among the rushes. 

3. Encounters count: elicit a physical and emotional response by pitching people into a physical encounter with the phenomena. If information is 2-dimensional and being there is 3-dimensional, the full 4-dimensional experience is engaging with something in an interactive process in real time. This is learning through experience. We experience phenomena by placing ourselves in relation to the experience, not just intellectually but with our whole selves, in motion. Given a ‘situation’ and some action, enthralling facets of both ourselves and the phenomena are revealed. This labyrinth boardwalk triggers disorientation, trepidation and, in a sense, respect, which echo our archaic responses to traversing a bog. 

4. Flag up: indicate the significance of the ordinary with the judicious use of signifiers. Just as putting a frame around or a pedestal under an object can elevate it to an artwork, symbols need not only be two-dimensional.   This unexpected, large, red chair outside an agricultural museum catches the eye and redirects it to the quite ‘normal’-looking paddocks and orchards beyond.

5. Change the intangible to the tangible:  make the intangible heritage of a place, such as historic events or people long dead, more real. These should be materially manifested in some form to make them tangible. Here the residency of Friedrich Wilhelm I in Alt Landsberg is brought to life by comical figures:

6. Relate to the whole: position the location into a larger frame of reference by revealing interesting new dimensions and significance. These stones in a school yard in Königs Wusterhausen, Germany, are tagged with the names of localities thousands of kilometers away in Norway and Sweden from which they were transported by the ice caps as little as 10.000 years ago.

7. Define, holistically: give a phenomenon physical limits, emotional context, and a name, thereby giving it more substance in our minds and enabling us to talk about it with others. The entity you present should be as holistic as possible, so essential components are not neglected by default. Our 20th Century practice of focusing on constituent parts, rather than on the whole (e.g. star-species as opposed to the ‘biome’ which includes the habitat, all the plants and animals in it and ourselves) has caused untold damage to the world. The holistic approach is thankfully beginning to establish itself in our time. The Tourist Association of Havelland, Germany, for example, ignores the haphazard county borders, and presents ‘Havelland’ as the river and its associated landscapes.

8. Mediate: direct visitors’ attention and influence their emotions in the same way as an enthusiastic guide or compere might. Good interpretive design mediates between people and phenomena. This spring bench is intended to put visitors in a whimsical state of mind for enjoying the wildflowers of the meadow.

9. Value transfer: use a mind-trick often found in the world of advertising. Props with well-established value are inserted around the product of undefined merit, and the desirability of the former will ‘overflow’ onto the latter. Think of those top of the range cars and fashion models in advertisements for watches. In the same way, excellent design and the use of quality materials will signal high value for the phenomena they are attending to. This rule cuts both ways, of course: poor design and materials will signal the opposite. The neglect and poor design of the panel on the left at a historical site in Bulgaria surely devalues the site it is supposed to be promoting. Our appreciation of this dragonfly motif, on the other hand, surely rubs off on the moor beyond it with which it forms an aesthetic whole.

These are just a few of the ways in which designers can encourage the ‘normal’ to be experienced as something special. I see this task of consolidating landscape identities as essential to creating a sense of place and connection to heritage communities which can be beneficial to both people and places — to preserving our cultural and natural environments. As Meto J. Vroom put it, “identity makes identification possible.” 

Angus Forbes is from the UK and has been a practicing landscape architect in Berlin, Germany for over 20 years. forbesberlin@yahoo.com

Nature as Mentor

Just before I started to write this blog post about mental health-inducing, life affirming insights, I decided to read one last email.  That took me for a ride and completely hijacked what I was going to write. Blame it on the Biomimicry 3.8 team. Biomimicry is a concept I have been enthralled with ever since reading Janine M. Benyus’ ground-breaking book “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.”

She positioned nature as a mentor and as a source of value, based on what we can learn from it, not what we extract from it.

The email was emphasizing the need to take comfort in nature—her resilience, her inspiration, and her endurance, as a way to help people through the enduring COVID crisis.

Biomimicry is all about tapping into and applying nature’s genius -an endless source of solutions to life’s design challenges.  The potential is there to transform the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business. One of their approaches to jumpstart solution development, is through nature journaling activities. The journaling can encourage participants to build their own collection of inspiring forms, processes, and systems found in nature.

Bio-inspired Outlook

To help guide you, on your own bio-inspired future through nature journaling, they have produced a biomimicry workbook written by Erin Rovalo.  The clever title, iSites, or as they explain “eyesight”, is a fun play on words, as it aims to focus you on being in a specific place while observing what is around you.  <https://b38.app.box.com/s/un6kwk5jhh2aaq8c202uu5l37n42l1d8?utm_source=Full+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=2b18ffb7e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_19_02_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_740ccc5ad4-2b18ffb7e2-118175665>

This isite guidebook maintains the eyesight analogy by sorting the exploratory exercises into different lenses to prompt different viewing perspectives that help with recognizing phenomena, observing patterns, focusing on context, and seeing interactions.  Biomimicry workshops employ a process of strategically directing participants to ponder questions like how does nature produce energy, how does nature optimize strength, and how does nature minimize waste? This opens up many diverse avenues of engagement interpreters could employ while building observation - raising skills with our heritage visitors.

Nurturing Dedications

The isite book has a wonderful dedication by the author that resonates on many levels for our work:

““To all the creative problem solvers working tirelessly to create a better world and who could use a dose of inspiration, beauty, and optimism to carry on. And to all the creatures of the Earth, large and small, that inspire us to do better.””

— Erin Rovalo

She captured the kind of nurturing holistic feeling our society so deeply needs right now (and always). How would you feel if you read this as you were entering one of our world’s heritage sites? Would you be uplifted? Would you pick up your pace and be inclined to increase your level of nature empathy?

Do you have a feel- good factor dedication aimed at your site visitors that also ties to your site mission? Maybe you should …

Credit: Biomimicry Institute

Ask Nature

Guided observation can allow participants to uncover solutions to specific situations. Here is one the biomimicry team shared:  Pomelo fruit can strike the ground from heights over 30 feet without showing signs of damage. An engaging extension for your visitor would be to explore questions like how does it do that and might this have any application to my life? A spinoff web site called asknature.org allows you to delve into background solution stories and provides an explanatory graphic to enhance your interaction. 

“The structure of pomelo peel aroused research interest in recent years because of the outstanding damping and energy dissipating performance of the pomelo peel. Researchers found that pomelo peel had varying pore size through the peel thickness.”

What ideas might this inspire in your participants? Their resource page lets you know that this discovery has inspired the recent development of an aluminum composite material being considered for use in safety applications. You could pull this out of your quiver of fun facts once they have had time to explore creative options on their own and in the group setting.

The family of biomimicry related web sites provides a wealth of information making it easy to get lost in a state of awe as you absorb the diversity of nature’s survival techniques. There is surely great fodder here for sharing with your actual and potential clientele.  One more example that was so topical, it demanded to be shared with you all.

3.8 Billion Years (or more) of Wisdom

“Get Outside-Nature is Antimicrobial” is an excellent article Biomimicry staffer Mark Dorfman has written for their Synapse blog.  In order to help reduce our COVID -induced anxiety level he points out that “ it might put a smile on your face to know that emerging from the wisdom of 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has figured out how to make her materials–ranging from leaves, flower petals, and insect wings to horns, beaks, and feathers–inhospitable to microbes. There is so much nature could teach us about how to design our surfaces so that they become a dead-end for pathogens.”

Credit: Bill Reynolds

He proceeds to provide a slew of examples from turtle eggshell proteins to carotenoid pigments in parrot feather barbs. https://synapse.bio/blog/get-outsidenatures-antimicrobial?utm_source=Full+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=2b18ffb7e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_19_02_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_740ccc5ad4-2b18ffb7e2-118175665

Nature-Rx

Buried in the Biomimicry 3.8 text was a link to something called doctor’s orders which took me to the Nature-RX website. There I was gobsmacked.  Here I found a series of ads from 2015 about the benefits of nature presented in a hilarious, yet powerful, way. Once I got over the bouts of laughter, I reflected on how cleverly written and produced they actually were. The ads perfectly blended together two of our recent blog posts: “Noticing: Attention Antidote with “The Gift of Humour.” An outdoor prescription had been combined with the art of humour in a very effective manner- a formula we could all emulate.

What an effective way to present the value of nature as an antidote for being tired, irritable and stressed out- a direct connection to how humans are increasingly feeling these days.  Rather than a lecture about the healing power of time spent outside or a philosophical discourse about being inspired by all the beauty and detail that surrounds us, the ads were easily digestible by being smothered in mirth. By spoofing the prevalent form of TV prescription ads, they immediately grabbed your attention. They even ended off with the familiar “Ask your doctor if nature is right for you” line. http://www.nature-rx.org/nature-rx-part-1

Creator Justin Bogardus touched on positive feelings of personal value importance as a way to achieve compliance rather than negative feelings that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. His primary goal appeared to be raising environmental awareness and getting more people valuing the outdoors for its health -inducing selfishness. Ultimately, he hoped that would extend to supporting universal planetary health.  He was going for this relevance because he realized that nature had a marketing problem. By looking at things in surprising and funny new ways, he was using the classic advertising technique of capturing interest through humour.

If you want to follow his impeccable branding logic listen to the Ted X talk as he unravels how the brain works where instincts and emotions drive our decision-making. http://www.nature-rx.org/nature-rx-ted-talk If you still need more laughter medicine and want it tied to the work environment, then watch the tongue-in-cheek living plant videos - great to send to co-workers and office managers.

Making Unappealing Messages Appealing

This seems like an appropriate time to insert a cultural spin on this topic of grabbing attention for something that is not that palatable or sexy or in this case anxiety-inducing - how to be safe during the COVID crisis. 

The Looma Creative Agency were hired by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Policy to design an effective public strategy to minimise the risk of infection. The firm used a combination of creative blending of heritage appreciation with humour to send an important message. They capitalized on the concept that the ability to preserve the COVID quarantine – is a kind of art. So, they decided to use classic paintings with some artistic license and playful rendering to produce an eye-catching campaign that gets the message across.

Credit: Looma Creative Agency

If you want to see Jesus wearing a mask sitting alone at the last supper with a message about staying at home and social distancing, among other clever renditions, then take a peek at these framed masterpieces on this web site. https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/digital/mcpu_artofquarantine  Drawing attention to your collection through humour while linking several items together to tell a relevant story just may be a very effective marketing approach.  Isn’t it time we employ more of these appealing styles to connect and build our base of support?

Anyone with successful examples of blending humour with your collection? Please send them our way. We would love to share them with all our readers.

Reserves of strength

We can never be reminded enough about the power of humour and its need in our heritage sites, however let’s get back to the folks at Biomimicry 3.8, to wrap up this blog-post. Their e-newsletter that started all this, included this wonderful quote:

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth
find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. …
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature. ”

— Rachel Carson

If you have never read Rachel Carson’s book The Sense of Wonder you need to SOON, as a way to renew your curiosity and sense of awe while pursuing this journey of spending more time in nature. If you have already read it, it is probably time to read it again as she eloquently gets at the heart of our infinitely healing earth relationship.

Personally, I owe a lot to Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring that shook my high school world in the sixties when she exposed us all to the perils of pesticides like DDT. This was one of many influential pieces of literature that catapulted me initially into the academic world of biological science and heritage interpretation. But I digress.

Continue to build up and draw from your reserves of strength to do what you do. Let’s bring laughter, the art of being more observant, and the feeling of being nature awestruck together to benefit the health of people, and the earth. Keep up the great work protecting our heritage and bringing joy to people’s lives.

Meow Wolf

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Meow Wolf: Please Open All Drawers and Doors

If you have a chance to visit a Meow Wolf installation near you, by all means go…and hang on to your hats, it can be a bit of a wild ride.

After reading Bill’s post regarding a museum in Belgium that presents artwork in an unusual fashion, I couldn’t help but think about my visit to Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A friend of  mine thought I would enjoy the experience and here’s what I knew: it was set up by artists and it had a story line dealing with a top government scientist and his family that went missing. I was open to whatever might happen next.

Meow Wolf’s converted warehouse was full of energy with families, young kids, teenagers, and adults all taking part in various experiences, playing with and on the installations, and the staff encouraging everyone try and solve the mystery of the missing family, and to please touch everything, open drawers and doors, and have fun. These instructions fit nicely with the Meow Wolf mission, “Meow Wolf champions otherness, weirdness, challenging norms, radical inclusion, and the power of creativity to change the world.” There is something for everyone in Meow Wolf, but perhaps not a lot of peace and quiet.

However, things they have done in the name of art and fun offer some important interpretive possibilities that I think could liven up even the most staid museum, historical or even natural site…if you are willing to challenge the norms and allow some otherness to seep into the site.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Philosophy

I was also impressed with the philosophy they took toward the importance of art and artists. “Meow Wolf firmly believes that accomplished artists must be compensated on an equal level with other skilled, in-demand professionals, and that successful businesses must give back to — and participate energetically in — their communities. We provide financial assistance, expertise, and other forms of active support and we are excited to support innovative, community-focused art and social projects.”

A movie produced by Meow Wolf chronicles their unique approach to the development of the space in Santa Fe and a trailer on the web site is definitely worth watching. The movie is for sale and is one way they raise funds for the artists.

Radical Design

From an EID perspective, I was fascinated by the design process that took place in Santa Fe. After obtaining a large warehouse everyone worked together to come up with the layout and design of the space. This included the artists, tradesman, architects, engineers, designers, and anyone else involved in the project. Though I am pretty sure this process had its ups and downs, it certainly was inclusive and allowed various perspectives to be considered. The group had definite outcomes in mind and yet there is a sense of freedom and joy embedded in the space.

This approach is what EID advocates in the design process at preservation, collection and historical recognition sites when new spaces or exhibitions are being planned. Get the Interpretive Designers involved from the very beginning to help embed mission-based, experiential outcomes for the visitors before a building is designed. Then when it is clear what you want visitors to leave with it will be easier to design a building or space or a trail. All too often the process is donation – design – build – interpretation. EID advocates donation – interpretation – design – build, or even better interpretation - donation – design – build.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Interpretive Design From the Beginning

A recent EID project is a good example of how using the Interpretive Design perspective at the beginning could have provided a better visitor arrival experience. The site in question is about 90 minutes from a large metropolitan area and is quite unique in its mission with a strong set of outcomes. However, when most folks arrive and park the first thing they will need to do is get comfortable – and that means finding a bathroom. No amount of impressive interpretation is going to happen before the bladders are emptied.

But where are the closest bathrooms? In the main building, of course, on the other side of the ticket office. There is no way to have any meaningful introduction to the site between the car park and the visitor’s centre because a rest room is needed. After a certain level of comfort is restored, the visitor then returns to the front of the building and purchases a ticket — then they are ready for some interpretation. Bathrooms near the car park are now a distant afterthought. I’m not saying the current situation can’t work, but if an interpretive designer had been involved before construction plans, maybe a different introduction to the place and its mission before visitors entered the building could be a possibility.

Nooks and Crannies, Surprises and Allowing Otherness

Yes, lots of big things happen at Meow Wolf, and there are also some small touches that I found intriguing as an interpretive designer. One place was a windowed room with a table and chairs and some information on the “missing family” that I casually walked by. All of a sudden from behind a wall next to the room a couple appeared and continued on their way. To my delight I discovered a small, secret space between the room and the main wall with a one-way window where I could watch people in the room. What fun to do a bit of unnoticed watching.

I immediately began to think how this secret space could benefit an historical site. What if you could secretly watch Martha and George Washington at Mt. Vernon discussing the day’s events. Or maybe the farm overseer arrives to talk about the need for a few more slaves to run the plantation (now there’s a way to introduce a difficult topic around America’s first president). Real people could portray the parts, or, in this day and age, holographic figures could act out various scenes.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Not too far from this false wall was a small balcony hidden behind a curtain that overlooked the main floor. A bit of peace and quiet was available in this space while observing visitors interacting with the various installations below. In busy natural and cultural sites, a bit of reflective space would be a welcomed relief from all the hustle and bustle…and it doesn’t have to be much of a space, just a little something out of the way. I welcomed the pause and a chance to just observe.

Photo Credit: Kate Russell, Courtesy of Meow Wolf

Doors and Drawers

A couple of surprises I liked were in the kitchen and laundry room of the “missing” family. As some visitors read a “newspaper” on the kitchen table about the family, others opened cabinets and drawers looking for clues. Then someone opened the refrigerator door and disappeared. This I had to try. Sure enough, open the door to the fridge and a bright light partially obscured the fact that you could walk right in and enter another room (I felt like I was in the Monty Python movie “The Meaning of Life”). What a delightful surprise! Couldn’t a science museum use a similar unexpected experience to keep folks interested in what might happen next – like splitting an atom and entering a new “world” on the other side.

In the laundry room the kids had already discovered the dryer. If you dove in head-first a slide took you into a different room. It was a tight squeeze, but I did make it. Surely it is OK to have some “just for fun” spots to move people about in any interpretive site.

Photo Credit: Kate Russell, Courtesy of Meow Wolf

The Power of Creative Spirit

There is no lack of creative spirit in Meow Wolf. Several gigantic structures greet the visitor near the entrance that can be admired, touched or used to sit beneath and relax.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Several interior walls display the artistic flair with paintings and drawings and funny quotes. So often empty wall space is not used to help reinforce the mission and messages of a place, so why not put that space to use where appropriate.

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

I thoroughly enjoyed the huge dinosaur skeleton suspended from the ceiling in one room that was actually a musical instrument. Using soft mallets, you strike different bones and a musical tone sounds and a light is activated. Definitely more of my kind of fun. I could envision something similar in a natural history museum but instead of musical tones each bone made a different dinosaur sound and a picture of that dinosaur is activated. An intersection between art, science and interpretation.

Photo Credit: Kate Russell, Courtesy of Meow Wolf

My wife discovered a 15-foot narrow, darkened corridor with very thin fabric on each side. She accidentally touched the fabric and it created a line of light. She proceeded to create designs of light on the fabric and spent a good 10 minutes just playing and laughing.

A forest house was available for climbing and each level had different artifacts from the “missing” family. And, of course, you could exit the house and be on another level of the building, or take a slide or stairs down a level. Another great way to create interesting structures that move folks about and still keep true to the message.

Photo Credit: Lindsay Kennedy, Courtesy of Meow Wolf

Meow Wolf was loud, busy, exciting and may not be for everyone, but if you get a chance it is worth the visit. It is fun and provided me with a wealth of ideas. By the way, wondering where the name Meow Wolf came from? Each person working on the project put two of their favorite words into a hat, and the two names drawn out became the name of the experience…thus Meow Wolf.

(Besides the Santa Fe location, other Meow Wolfs are being planned in Denver, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix)

Photo Credit: Mike Mayer

Guided Tours that Break the Mould

What if? You wanted to…

• be different.

• exhibit a collection in a non-traditional venue that would draw attention.

• create an event feeling that was intimate.

• pull together objects, sourced from many places, & never been shown together

• arrange for a group of celebrities to share past experiences with selected objects ·        

• move visitors through the experience (without having to say “follow me, gather round”).

• provide life histories about the living entities that made the displayed objects.

• allow for the visitor to share stories of their life connections to selected objects.

Chapel of the Holy Spirit church in Mechelen, Belgium

Credit to HetKunstuur web site

Two enterprising people referred to as Het Kunstuur, created and presented an initiative called The Art Hour in an historic church in Belgium.  Talk about an exhibition guided tour that breaks the mould.  The “collection” happens to be painting driven but it could be any collection of natural or cultural objects or artifacts. The above bulleted points collectively create an interesting list of criteria, that could be realized in different ways, as long as you stay truthful to the criteria’s essence of what it is you are aiming to accomplish. Let’s unravel this experience.

Focal point

Eight visitors are admitted at a time to do a self-guided tour of 32 art pieces during a 1 hour experience. Only one work of art is lit up at a time. This is important to establish a focal point and keep people’s gaze directed, thus preventing distractions. As the light goes off one painting and then comes on at the next painting, people will pick up their chair on the cue to move along. The intent is for a seamless and subtle coercion to migrate.

Visitors sit in a group, viewing not only the one painting but also the first celebrity narrator, who is being projected in 3D beside the painting. Headphones play the music and narration. The celebrity shares what holds significance for them in relation to the artwork and the emotional bonds they may have developed with it.  Visitors progressively move around the church to sit in front of subsequent paintings and view video projections of the different celebrity narrators.

Projected image of narrator beside exhibit painting

credit HetKunstuur web site

Celebrities

You don’t have to use holavision techniques to achieve the celebrity wow factor, but you do need some visual of that person for recognition value. The focus should be after all on the object or painting in this case. Modern - day celebrities of all ages certainly bring allure to the exhibition, yet celebrities do come in all shapes and sizes, as they say.

A variation on this would be if you are dealing with an historic site for example, where a modern day descendent of a significant person from the past could be used to share their relative’s and their own connection to the object in the spotlight. At a nature centre, a bird of prey is a wonderful “object” and celebrity all rolled up in one, who may need some translation services on behalf of the interpreter in order to share some birdlife experiences for the visitor. Any idea what celebrity has visited your site recently? Discovering this may be as simple as inserting a column in your guest book titled “FAMOUS FOR…” beside “Name.”

Movement

Moving around a space is not necessary either, as your visitors could be seated together and the objects could be positioned on a stage at different heights and depths only being seen in succession because of the spotlight shining on them while the rest of the area is in the dark. The viewer’s eyes move but not their bodies, as in the classic object theatre approach, where different artifacts and short video clips are chosen to weave a story together, usually time-line based. The small group intimacy is lost however.

I have also seen a combination of these techniques used where we as natural history museum visitors were admitted to a dark exhibit space representing the ocean depths. A few people at a time were admitted and you were limited to viewing one denizen of the deep due to only one illuminating light. As the successive single lights came on from left to right, we all moved in whispered silence from one end of the cleverly “hidden” wall – to - ceiling exhibit case, to the opposite end, then exited.

Moving around within one building space creates the experience package with a co-ordinated beginning and ending feel. This would not hold up the same way if you, being the visitor, encountered the objects by moving inside/outside between buildings on a site.

People Connect to People

In the case of The Art Hour, added value is provided in the chapel by an actor’s narrated rendition of the life histories of the artists who created the pieces on display. People connect to people. Yet so many galleries ignore the public’s insatiable urge to connect with the artist as a person. Connecting to THE ART on many levels is so important, however galleries too often forget the fact that people want to know what makes these individuals, these artists, human: their desires, their foibles, their backgrounds ( the dirt, the sordid affairs, the weird factor, etc.).

If your collection contains natural history items the added value could be the life histories of the living beings that produced the chosen objects on display (e.g. honeycomb and a worker bee describing how she manufactures the comb and its hexagonal shape). In keeping with the thought that people connect with people, consider relating an interesting life history moment of a famous scientist, musician, poet, etc. who had a connection with whatever natural history object is on display (e.g. Charles Darwin and ants)

credit Bill Reynolds

Do you know what really stands out for me?  It was the fact that there was no primary, traditional, fall-back dependency on little white label cards with the artist’s name, the painting’s name and the medium used. If this was banished from our stable of labelling choices would there be an outcry among the general public? Please send us comments on this blasphemous statement.

For more info on this exhibitory technique go to https://hetkunstuur.com/en 

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What if? You wanted to test whether:

• a self-guided experience could be just as (or more) engaging with an object as a personally guided experience?

• you could facilitate meaningful experiences with objects on view, when you don’t have time to properly research them?

• · you could satisfy 3 goals: 

1. to foster personal and meaningful connections to objects on display,

2. to have fun learning with the people you came to the museum with, and

3. to encourage creativity

Theresa Sotto at the Los Angeles Hammer Museum did just that with art works using a semi-self - guided experience set up for sharing between partners. She prepared prompts ahead of time in three categories under the headings 1) Select, 2) Question, and 3) Translate.

1} Select: Gallery visitors were invited to choose a work that they associated with a certain adjective. Some of her options were secretive, awkward, and friendly. Options for participants could range from choosing at random or alternatively picking an adjective they really wanted.

The great thing about having the visitor choose is that they are starting where their interest is and not where your interest is -a classic faux-pas of many a guided visit. Again, this is a technique that could be employed for artifacts, botanical specimens, zoo animals, you name it.

2} Question: Once a work was selected having been matched to the qualifying adjective, the visitor then picked one of many Question cards which directed them to reflect on issues and outcomes that Theresa desired her visitors to grapple with. These queries ranged from, “Could this work change someone’s life? If so, how?”; to “In what ways is this work relevant to people in Los Angeles?” Depending on the nature of the work other probing questions could focus on emotions in general and delving into the artists’s intentions.

Credit: Bill Reynolds

In certain situations, visitors were supplied a second question card. The number of cards chosen by people should really depend on the interest of the participants. You could really have fun with this stage of the experience as the style of questions could vary depending on the outcome the interpreter is trying to accomplish and how they want to focus the visitor. For example, in a natural history setting, using something as simple as “I wonder how that flower smells?” or “How would you describe the way that leaf feels, on its top, its bottom, its side?” catalyzes action on behalf of the visitor to explore.

3} Translate: This exercise related to describing first what the visitor thought was truly the essence of the work of art they had chosen. Then they were to think creatively about how those qualities could be translated into another form or genre–such as a Craigslist ad, a restaurant menu, or thirty seconds of sound. You could really expand on these options and have an array to choose from. One could even take the opportunity to have some cardshark fun adding appropriate lines, for example, with the film buff visitor, “pick a card, any card, sweetheart,” using your best Humphrey Bogart imitation. Be creative and send us your favourite line for a specific audience type- you may just win a book.

Theresa created this experiment for her peers during a meeting of the group she started known as The Gallery Teaching Lab, where her goal was to foster innovation in gallery teaching. Best of all though is her motto: Rules are meant to be broken. Tell us about any peer to peer learning groups you are involved in in our comments section below.

Theresa shared her Select Question Translate example, among others, in the blog titled https://artmuseumteaching.com/2017/02/28/gallery-teaching-lab/ This is a digital community and collaborative online forum for reflecting on critical issues in the field of museums. Check it out.

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Hodgepodge Lodge

Why hodgepodge lodge? There were numerous snippets that floated across my screen and in my mind within a week after the last post that related to it so why not share right away and strike while the iron is hot, as they say. Each snippet cascaded into the next coming to reside, connected yet jumbled in their home called the hodgepodge lodge.

Remember the Audubon bird mural project in Manhattan from our last blog. Well, lo and behold just a few days after I stumbled on a podcast with Jason Ward, a birder of colour, as he describes himself, that featured the mural initiative. David takes us on a bit of an actual walk with him and the project coordinator throughout the neighbourhood for a human’s eye view. In addition, he interviews one of the artists, inside the artist’s gallery. You will get up close and personal with the work that he titled, the gang of warblers – he said “I wanted those birds to have attitude.” He wasn’t kidding. Perhaps he was trying to appeal to a certain demographic in the neighbourhood. I highly recommend checking out these podcasts as Jason is very genuine and funny. https://www.topic.com/birds-of-north-america

Photo credit Marion Reynolds

Jason also did an interview with an actress- hobby birdwatcher, in another post, where she alludes to the skills used in birding are similar to the skills she uses in acting. Top of the line is of course listening as an actor has to be in the moment on stage and be extremely conscious of what is going on around you. She emphasized the art of tracking your character so you don’t impose on your character. Follow your character and you find a story that you can develop. Similarly by listening and following your avian character, s/he will allow you to plug in to the annual seasonal cycle and connect to the natural world.

“Artists are stealth change agents. Their power is both subtle and profound: They grab hold of hearts and minds, and reveal a whole new way of seeing things — a way that can inspire people to take action.”

This applies to actors as well and I would like to credit the individual who said it but can’t find a reference. It was too good to not share.

I watched popular author Richard Louv’s (Last Child in the Woods, etc.) webinar, called Finding Nature, through the children & nature network website .  He expounded on our recent blog spotlight that dealt with paying attention. He added cloudspotting to the backyard pursuits on top of bird spotting. He talked about the importance of nurturing nature not just observing it in your backyard. He challenged everyone to create their own “national park” on their front or back lawn by planting native seeds and encouraging native pollinators back to urban environments. He makes a passionate plea that land conservation is not enough and we need regeneration of native landscape. If you want to plant for birds benefit then this US site will tell you what is native to your zip code http://bonap.net/Napa/Genus/Traditional/State . For other countries, maybe the national bird conservation society has something similar in your neck of the woods, as we say.

Along the same vein in this week’s e-newsletter from the children & nature network website, Richard Louv posted a column titled, The Art of Seeing.  Previously he had asked for readers to submit stories about animals that had changed their lives. He shares a wonderful story about the impact of a dragonfly that was “a bit of a ham.”  https://www.childrenandnature.org/2020/04/21/the-natural-art-of-seeing/?mc_cid=5fdff6bdf8&mc_eid=d30eca01e5

When describing Canadian artist Robert Bateman, Richard writes in the same article, “he saw the world as a bird would and for the rest of his life experienced the world from that viewpoint, of how a bird might sense the world combined with his own insights. Such sensitivity is felt both from outside one’s own body and from deep within it.” He encourages us to draw or paint what we see outside and try to become the animal.

He touched a neural connection for me at that point as I remembered a book from my university days that changed how I “saw.” Titled “The Zen of Seeing” by Frederick Franck it was handwritten because as he said it is a love letter in a way and love letters should not be typeset. It is slower to read but there is no hurry…He said that the exercises are for those who feel they cannot even draw a straight line. He saw seeing/drawing as a way to “inscape from the overloaded switchboard” of urban life. “ He was all about getting into intimate touch with the natural world by  establishing “ an island of silence, an oasis of undivided attention, an environment to recover in…”

“In this century, to stop rushing around,to sit quietly on the grass,to switch off the world and come back to the earth, to allow the eye to see a bush, a cloud, a leaf, is ‘an unforgettable experience.’”

— Frederick Franck

photo credit Bill Reynolds

One small gallery in southern England, Hastings Contemporary, aims to harness the power of art to inspire people to see the world differently and a place for respite and renewal. They have recently innovated accessibility by being the first gallery to introduce telepresence robots. By turning their gallery walls inside out they are now allowing up to 5 visitors at a time to login to a 30 minute guided tour to view the gallery using the art droid. The tours use The Double videoconferencing robot, developed by the Bristol Robotics Lab.and allow you to zoom in. If you want to watch the short video https://www.hastingscontemporary.org/exhibition/robot-tours/

In the hot off the press column, here are two of many reactions to the social isolation situation :

A series of fun activities for earth week involving superheroes

https://planetprotectoracademy.com/for/parents-he/?source=david-suzuki-foundation&medium=email&campaign=home-edition-spring-2020&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWTJRMVpqQXhNVE0xTkdWaCIsInQiOiIwaEZSbkNkVTc1Zmpadm05cTFuSEJCRGJRQ3FmajM5eWs4eTU0RzdxOUhQdjROVkIxQ0dpbzAwTVk0T3ZNamxPYTZSYXlZK1BtaTBmcHlIQ3ZveGdRWUZPbGw4OXhZRlpWNDEzTlhTelpDcGtQMXQ4MmFwU3BFOGh5bjVaQWVQTSJ9

London’s V&A has launched Lockdown Wednesdays, a weekly series of hands-on activities to spark creativity. The programme, which is available on the V&A’s blog encourages participants to make items inspired by pieces from its collection. What could you have digital visitors make inspired by natural residents on your site or your collection?

Don’t leave home without these!

We are receiving a wake-up call.  The virus is sending us a message:

STOP !

Time to hit the PAUSE button.

RETHINK relationships.

Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon

We are being given the opportunity to rediscover the kinship between us and other species. Especially during these unprecedented times, interpretive coaching can assist the strengthening of a natural relationship with all species that share the earth.  One of our roles as interpreters, is to help people figure out how to decode our mutually common language with the earth’s inhabitants. So, when people go out for their social distanced walk, we as interpreters need to be reminding them about something:

Your senses- don't leave home without them.

Jon Young, author of What the Robin Knows, strongly believes that birds are the best mentors to unlock the outdoor nature-based conversations. The only talent you require is awareness and motivated practice. You do need to also bring along a respectful attitude to allow close encounters with wildlife (binoculars help too).

“When we train ourselves to listen to the birds…when we ‘lose our minds’ and ‘come to our senses’… the texting, emailing, twittering mind will eventually quiet down.”

— Jon Young

By sharing his tips on improving our eye opening and ear opening skills, he shows us how to access the world of birds through what he calls deep bird language. He considers deep bird language a multidimensional full contact sport that will allow us to see more wildlife. The main idea is not just to hear birds but to hear everything.

Stop walking with arrogance

Jon mentions that the awareness required to understand and connect with birds changed his life. It allowed him to connect with his deepest instincts and to stop walking in the woods with arrogance and in a state of self absorption. I can relate to doing this on occasion and I certainly observe this behaviour in many park visitors. The benefits are there not only for the novice but also for the experienced birder. As a birdwatcher already myself, Jon has added a whole new dimension to my avian observations.

Sparking a connection with the subject is the primary goal; the learning follows. This philosophy is at the heart of EID’ s work. The learning is in the questioning and the doing. This book aims to provide the behavioural doing tips, along with some tools for asking the right questions. This allows you to uncover the answers the birds have been providing all along. In true interpretive style Jon is careful at not providing answers forthright but presenting the guidelines for your own discovery.

So, what happens? We rebuild habits of perception buried within all of us.  This allows us to open up to an often, ignored world and add an interesting dimension to our backyard or neighbourhood walk. This guidebook walks one through how to rediscover the instinct we all have of bird tracking. The greatest teachers he says are the species you see every day, like robins. Robins, from his experience, are often the real gatekeepers to approaching other wildlife unobtrusively.  

Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon

Birds’ language is loaded with meaning if we pay attention, and Jon provides the methods to still the chatter, quiet the mind, and practice the routine of invisibility. It may a sound a bit mystical at first, but the approach is very practical, coming from an indigenous & scientific viewpoint. You are trying to minimize the ripples, waves, and concentric rings of disturbance that propagate in all directions when humans blindly charge off on a walk or stride boldly into their backyard.  This movement pretty well guarantees the comment, “I didn’t see any wildlife.”

Shrink the sphere of disturbance

When our disturbance exceeds our awareness in size and scope, we cause a wake of disturbance around us seeing little. Tied to this signature wake is what Jon refers to as the bird plow.  To reverse this effect you want to aim for awareness growing larger than disturbance. He expands on techniques for sensory expansion using owl vision, deer hearing, and raccoon touching while one also practices a gliding versus bouncing gait and fox walking with the use of shorter, softer steps versus the normal swing and stomp method.

Having close encounters with animals is not random. Bird alarm calls give all wildlife advance warning. As Jon says, if you want to see animals, you have to ask permission from the birds first. Jon talks about the attitude of respect when walking and the need to pause frequently when moving in a relaxed manner, to replace collision with connection. He has found that all birds have a species-specific tension sequence, some of them being hard for us to differentiate before explosive flight. The book is full of practical examples to reduce this tension like turning away techniques using the honouring routine. Trying this with a red squirrel will provide an endless challenge.

Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon

Law of the Land: Disturb one, Disturb all

A bird’s last resort is the cry of alarm.  To survive, birds have to know where and what danger is, along with a plan to avoid it quickly and quietly, with minimal energy expenditure. Heeding alarm calls for prey species is a good strategy not just for their own family, species or us, for that matter, but for all wildlife. Birds are prey species and are always on the lookout for dangerous situations and signs of trouble. You need to place yourself into this perspective. Over time, within a given habitat, one can organize birds, based on their alarm reactions, along a shy-to-bold scale.

Their pre-alarm call evasive reactions have a distinctive shape based on the specific kind of aerial or land - based threat involved. Categorized by Young, there are twelve kinds to be on the lookout for like: bird plow, sentinel, popcorn and parabolic for example. What demands practice is the recognition of these occurrences and your avoiding being the stimulus that creates them.

“The birds’ wisdom is their awareness and their awareness, is their wisdom.”

— Jon Young

Alarm calls, however are just one of 5 key vocalizations by birds. Their knowledge can add layers of enjoyment to your getting to know your neighbours. Alarm calls are similar phonetically to what is known as the companion call but exaggerated in speed and intensity, and accentuated by the landscape position and body language. Here is a summary of these five so you can get a sense of what to listen for (with apologies to those who dislike anthropomorphic frivolity):

• Songs proclaims territory indicating fitness level (to males) and knowledge of hiding places, safe roosts, best escape and avoidance strategies/routes (to females); “These are my home boundaries and I will defend them so keep movin’ on buddy,” OR “I have lots of energy to put the best tasting grubs on the nest table and to protect you and our children from predators.”

• Companion Calls sweetest and most calming, indicating well being; “All is good my darling, and you ARE looking ravishing today.”

• Territorial aggression calls minimize all- out fighting by posturing and warning; “If you step one foot closer, I'll drill the nape feathers off your head.”

• ·Adolescent begging is an indicator of hunger; ” I WANT MY FOOD AND I WANT IT NOW”

• Alarm calls surprised panic due to predator danger; “Holy S__T, Robin. Escape to the Birdcave.”

Audio files have been produced as a companion to the book having representative vocalizations from robin whinnies to chipmunk alarms. They can be found at birdlanguage.com

Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon

The delightful thing is you will never exhaust the subject. The lifelong learning curve is very appealing.

Jon recites a story about a San bushman at the beginning and end of the book to cement a thought in the reader’s mind. I have paraphrased it like this:

If I see a small bird and recognise it, a thin thread will form between me and that bird. If I just see it and don’t recognize it then a thread does not form. If I see and really recognize that same individual again the thread will thicken.  Every time I see and recognize that bird the thread strengthens. Eventually it grows into a string, then a cord and finally a rope. We make ropes with all aspects of creation.

Jon shares with us the sweet feeling he senses when he is accepted not as a predator, an intruder or a stranger but a neighbor. The learning benefits of watching an individual on a regular basis more intently are that you’ll get to become familiar with his or her habits. Just like a human neighbour I find myself offering a verbal greeting to my feathered friends when on a walk. This provides me with a sense of something- a good feeling- camaraderie? 

Listen farther than you can see

It is all about building a connection with other living beings, and to appreciate them not as a species but as an individual.  Jon emphasizes finding a comfortable place to sit down for around 30-40 minutes to allow everything to settle in. He calls this a sit spot, and sees it as the key to a natural relationship.

“ A sit spot is the heart and soul of bird language, practice room and concert hall, raw canvas and glorious museum.”

— Jon Young

This is a time to really learn to listen to the silence, so one can hear more of everything else. We need to listen farther than we can see.  The main idea is not necessarily to hear birds but to hear everything. Jon combines this with journal writing to record impressions and questions. He uses arrows to depict movements.

Photo: Jon Heller

This approach by Mr. Young brought back extremely pleasant memories for me of participating in a solitude enhancing activity called magic spots as well as being immersed in an Earthwalk sensory awareness activity called symphony. Participants were set up to focus on sounds and record them not by identifying who made the sounds but simply by capturing the acoustic essence like volume, speed, pattern and tonal elements being heard. I never knew the wind had so many nuanced sounds. 

This occurred during the 70’s in an ACClimatization Experiences Institute outdoor camp workshop. That Institute has morphed into the present- day Institute for Earth Education. Their Earthwalks; an alternative nature experience book describes the wonderful activity called symphony (among many others).

You have really had a strong hit of natural history content in this post so I would be remiss to not include some cultural history. Art and science are not strange bedfellows but great reinforcers of community inspiration.

Brighten Your Community

The National Audubon Society has a wonderful project called the Audubon Mural Project where they have matched sponsored money with artists to complete murals of climate-threatened birds using urban walls as a stark reminder of the birds that once lived in cities—and might yet again with the restoration of habitats.  It started by brightening up the urban environment throughout John James Audubon's old Harlem‐based neighborhood in New York City with an amazing range of creativity.

Not just walls were used as canvases but a variety of surfaces from metal security store shutters to chain link fence to bridge panels were commandeered. BTW, the images in this post promote the Audubon Mural project and have all come from their website  https://www.audubon.org/amp

One street artist called ATM, has a video which captures the essence of the project and explains his process of matching the chosen bird to the surface contours. https://www.audubon.org/news/townsends-warbler-atm  

Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon

Might there be an opportunity to brighten your neighbouring community to profile threatened birdlife and raise awareness of your centre? Go for it !

For those more culturally inclined readers who have got this far, then I add for your pleasure what the Getty Museum has done to lighten the isolation load.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90484459/getty-museum-challenges-quarantined-people-to-recreate-famous-works-of-art-with-hilarious-results

Noticing: Attention Antidote

As an act of compassion for each other, how can we employ our interpretive skills to help bolster the close directions from the health authorities to help flatten the Corona curve, slow things down and save lives? Paying attention to the world around us can be an antidote to the isolation being prescribed to avoid COVID -19 infection. This can take place in the built environment with architectural details as well as in nature with exuberant biodiversity.

However, we know fresh air and contact with the natural world help with a psychological and physical health regimen needed to counteract cabin fever when dealing with the required self-isolation.

The challenge is to be find strategies to absorb more from the world around you while social distancing. We have a few to share.

Helping people on all levels find solace in observing signs of spring and listening to birds is an important task, starting with what is happening just outside their window and progressing to a neighbourhood walk and trip to a park. Along with the inherent qualities that interpreters possess, we want to share ideas from two books that should help you ramp up observations, by providing fun new perspectives. Helping friends and neighbours this way is a given but many of these exercises can also be used, with a little ingenuity, for your site visitors, using a self-guided approach. This allows you to be productive and generate material from home.

A little book with a big punch by Rob Walker called The Art of Noticing (2019) is a compilation of 131 ways to discover joy in the everyday. The author makes a point (pre-COVID-19) that the most vital human resource in need of protection now and in the future is our mental space. He is coming from the perspective of counteracting the culture of distraction and releasing one from device connection. DIY techniques are supplied in Walker’s book as a way to regain business and social focus along with creativity and innovation. We can easily employ these in service of getting outdoors (with social distancing) and improving our ability to NOTICE.  Creativity and innovative qualities will no doubt also bubble to the surface as a bonus to the mental health boost gained by being alert in the outdoors, both in the natural and built environment. 

Walker borrows from a whole range of sources to encourage an enlightened reading of our world. Here’s a few highlights from the section entitled “Sensing” starting with a great quote from visual artist Nina Katchadourian,

“My job is really to pay attention and see what’s there that we haven’t seen yet. I am always trying to look at things we are overlooking and underestimating in terms of their interest or value.”

Does that not describe our job as an interpretive planner? Then we just add to that the role of assisting our visiting public to “see what’s there that they haven’t seen yet.”

Nina asks her students to notice something they always notice; now notice something they’ve never noticed. What an enticing provocation one could use with heritage site visitors! This works of course, better when setting up subtle ways of discovery, rather than a command to your visitor.

a rock surface image Photo credit Bill Reynolds

Incorporating the act of describing the “always noticed” item pulls the visitor into seeing more details of something taken for granted. We have used this technique in the fall using leaves and it is amazing how different aspen or poplar leaves can be when you slow your visitor down to absorb what is around them. When you set up the exercise of finding a leaf that speaks personally to the individual visitor because it shares similarities with them – well, you open up a variety of emotional bonding that you could never anticipate.

Dealing with the “never noticed” item, sometimes we have to help visitors change their vantage point by getting on their hands and knees to explore a microtrail or we position them at weird angles so they appreciate a tree from different perspectives.

Nina has been described as performing curiosity. Would you not love to describe yourself that way? “I perform curiosity so that my visitor engages with our special place.”  Known for her playful conceptual pieces Nina has a section on her web site titled, “Uninvited Collaborations with Nature,” which is guaranteed to give you a chuckle and provide you with interactive program inspiration for your visiting public… like spider web repairing.

To awaken our senses, Walker recommends that we “Make a Sound Map.” Jumping out at me, within this exercise, was a second attention getting quote (in bold no less): “The world is a museum. You are the docent.” This was attributed to music writer and instructor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Marc Weidenbaum. He takes his students on an urban soundwalk where he gets them to notice where, when and how sounds work, regardless of whether they are ephemeral or immobile. They are challenged to create a sense of place soundmap charting audible points of interest – potentially functional, historical, cultural, and natural.

Did you know that you can take sound shots (audio snapshots) using the voice memo app on your phone? Walker encourages us to do this and replay them to a friend then see if they can pinpoint the locale. Can you see how this could play out at your centre as a form of interaction between visitor and certain aspects of your site? 

He profiles Peter Cusack, a self- proclaimed sonic journalist, who gets people talking about the way they hear everyday sounds and what they think or feel about them. Instead of asking how a place looks he asks how does it sound. Peter produces a favouritesounds.org web site.

How about crowd sourcing from your visitors a favourite sounds web site for your interpretive space? Watch out, you may end up in places you have never heard of before.

Here is another idea from the book -”Take a Scent Walk” - a tool for discovery and exploration. He cites Dr Kate McLean, an artist and designer, who is a creator of smellmaps of cities around the world, working at the intersection of what she calls “human-perceived smellscapes, cartography and the communication of ‘eye-invisible’ sensed data.” She captures scents and embeds them on scratch- and-sniff cards. One can download her DIY smelfie guide to smellwalking at https://sensorymaps.com/about/

Having your visitor be their own docent and giving them hints on how to create their own map can lead in so many directions. Having them take a sensory focus other than visual- what a concept. Having them share their map with others – what engagement.

All this sensory awareness play brought back memories of handing out what we called scent catchers (one- inch square sponges having been soaked in a mystical solution) to visitors to use under their nose. This took place each time nature walk participants would scratch the surface of a natural object to release the smell then sniff the released scent. This sensory awareness activity was one of several stitched together into a different kind of nature walk called an Earthwalk.

shelf fungus Photo credit Bill Reynolds

The intent was to slow down:

• enjoy a light refreshing touch of nature    

• celebrate nature not study it,

• explore with the senses not with an identification guide and

• discover the unseen and ignored hiding in natural patches.

A series of earthwalks have been designed and painstakingly developed by Steve Van Matre and Associates from the Institute of Earth Education over a series of decades. A book describing these carefully crafted activities that aim at developing the feelings of joy, kinship, reverence, and love for the natural world is now available. Having both led earthwalks, Mike and I can attest to the highly impactful, and refreshingly fun experiences they are. We will have a review of this book in an upcoming blogpost. For now check out Earthwalks; an alternative nature experience  at  http://www.ieetree.org/education-tree/earthwalks/  see page 20-21 in this flip style digital catalogue http://www.ieetree.org/sourcebook_iee/

As I was just about to put this blogpost to bed, I came across a fitting passage from the 1960’s I needed to squeeze in. Louis de Kiriline Lawrence wrote with a lyrical reverence for life. As part of a concluding last paragraph to The Lovely and the Wild she wished that people would strive to be on a heightened awareness of natural changes: “… not for the sake of selfish pseudo-recreation in their midst {creations of millenia}, not for relief from man - made sordidness and artificial pressures, not just to gratify the need of mercenary exploitation and vain possession, but to obtain some deeper guiding comprehension of nature’s irremissible logic, of the intricacies of all its balanced systems.”

Fungi and algae take a lichen to each other Photo credit Bill Reynolds

Life is about cultivating our sense of wonder and helping others rediscover theirs. 

Rob Walker’s book provides many tools to do just that emphasizing the urban environment with easy crossover applicability to whatever your interpretive space is. The Earthwalks book produced by Steve Van Matre and Associates, focuses on sensory awareness in the natural non-built environment with detailed descriptions of the mechanics on how to craft such a walk. Add them to your bookshelf.

Let’s follow up these practical tips with a bonus (we hope you consider it so) riff on interpretive philosophy, which was instigated by a little background digging about author Rob Walker and where he teaches. Side note: He was the originator of the word “murketing” as a blend of murky and marketing. He needed a way to explain the different promotional focus using buzz creation rather than direct advertising sales that Red Bull broke away with through their sponsored events approach.

Rob is on the faculty of the Products of Design MFA Program at the School of Visual Arts (SFA), in New York City.  Looking into their mission and philosophy one sees how design and interpretation have so much in common. SFA sees the power of design as something:

Ø  to fix problems,

Ø  to create value,

Ø  to reinvent businesses, and

Ø  to address vital social and environmental challenges.

That fits really well with our view of interpretation, although we would exchange reinvent businesses with reinvent experiences. Their faculty motto seems to be “Designers don’t design things. They design consequences.” Interpreters design situations so people have interactions with the place they are visiting (i.e. consequences). Another parallel. Let’s follow this path a bit more.

The SFA considers the department itself to be a “product of design” because it responds nimbly and comprehensively to the critical questions around the role of objects, the impact of digitization, and centrality of justice in contemporary culture. Interpretive site teams if they stay relevant to their visitors also grapple with these critical questions.

They see designers as the connective tissue of their environments because:

Ø  they translate between stakeholders,

Ø  reframe problems,

Ø  reveal opportunities,

Ø  render the invisible visible, and

Ø  champion change.

 Similarity with the modern interpreter role, n’est ce-pas??

Our hope is that this blogpost about NOTICING has provided some joy in your life.

Questions for the comments section:

Do you have any thoughts to share on ways you have helped visitors to render the invisible visible (and in the process made someone’s day)?

Can you contribute some insights on how you would do this in a self-guided way at your site while working remotely?

Portugal Postulations: Insights come from corners and corridors

A series of travel observations will be coming your way over the next few months as I have stockpiled quite a few of what I like to call “Ruminations and Revelations from the Road.”  I hope they provide you with new perspectives and perform as idea generators that boost your interpretive output.

A recent journey to Portugal was the impetus to launch this series. Corners and corridors are often ignored or passed through too quickly, yet they can contain surprising elements for the wary eye. Don’t ignore the interpretive potential of your site’s “corners and corridors.” Here are four examples with the first one being explored a bit in depth and the other three being quick hits.

#1 One thing that struck my wife and I while travelling throughout Portugal was their habit of publicly memorializing their past citizens who excelled in the cultural realm - something our country Canada does not do very well. Authors, poets, painters, sculptors, dancers, film makers, opera singers have a presence in parks and on boulevards mainly through bust-like sculptural works, and sometimes by also including representative pieces of their work. By keeping this cultural aspect of everyday life alive, we provide a form of “hero” inspiration quite different from those commonly directed at military, political or sports personalities who seem to dominate our urban public places. Let’s not even start down the skewed gender path.

Then we noticed another type of personal tribute in a café corner. It caught our eye due to its personal nature. In the main salon of the Café Martinho da Arcada in Lisboa (Lisbon is the anglicized version), there was a table set aside in an unobtrusive corner, with a few objects on it.

Credit Bill Reynolds

This is where Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), perhaps the most famous Portuguese poet of the 20th century, wrote pieces of his work after closing time. The corner table had a copy of one of his books, along with a coffee cup and a shot glass for anise-based aguardiente - two of his favourite pastimes while writing in the cafe. The corner wall was adorned with pictures of Mr. Pessoa. What a fitting tribute!

You were welcome to sit down and engage with a book, imagine a conversation with this poet, reflect upon what it would have been like at the turn of the century, even consume his favourite meal or libation at a nearby table. This simple “shrine” kept a memory alive. Caution: by shrine I do not mean a place of standoffish reverence but one of approachable involvement.

Think of the interpretive possibilities for your situation. First, we would need to think who then where & how best to design the space. Obvious who choices are those personas who have expressed a love of place and have spent a significant time at your site, in your city or country. But let’s not stop there, as there are many people who have contributed to humanity’s appreciation and understanding of natural and cultural heritage that should be recognized, and haven’t any direct association with your site. Who deserves a place of honour at your site? Who should your visitor become exposed to, know more about and be reminded of for their inspiring views, research, conservation or expressions of joy that capture the essence of your site?

By taking time to reflect on who might represent what our sites stand for it can better communicate what values our sites express. That way we assist our visitors in extending the inspiration they initially felt in our parks and heritage sites. We can provide a new human connection for them.

These people being recognized don’t have to always reside in the past. Maybe you just want to honour a living individual who could have a positive impact on your visitors by encouraging heritage appreciation and awe. Perhaps “a conversation” between two individuals - one living and one having passed away -could be designed.

Conversation-inducing railing

Credit Bill Reynolds

The designated WHERE could be an interior space like the restaurant example, or it could be a sofa in the giftshop/bookstore, an alcove in your exhibit area, a portion of a lab bench, a seat in the auditorium…  The designated spot could be an exterior space like a conversational-inducing railing, a bench along a path, an Adirondack chair at a viewpoint, a treehouse in a forest, a picnic table in a botanic garden, an easel in a meadow, a driftwood enclosure at a beach...

HOW might we recognize these people who have shined a spotlight in various scientific or artistic ways, on significant aspects of our natural and cultural heritage?  As in Pessoa’s case, if you have a literary “celebrity” who frequented your site an obvious application would be the setting aside of a table in your visitors’ eating area, if you have one. Remember, you do not have to possess such an individual, although this would have strong allure. You may simply know of someone (past or present) that you would really like to come visit because they have a strong connection to the site’s mission.  You could create an invitational space designed to make your person of interest feel at home (if they ever were to visit) with objects that site visitors could also relate to.

Spaces can be perpetual but they don’t have to be.  The people being celebrated could change every so often giving visitors a reason to be exposed to another noteworthy personality annually or throughout the year. You could have one at a time or many. You could make it an event where visitors come to experience a sampling of people’s perspectives who love your site and what it stands for.

#2  Again another form of tribute caught our eye – this time on a street corner. The plaque type signage format is familiar to most of us however this treatment, subject matter and placement  were different. A friendly oval not a formal square shape was observed. The sign performed like a Warm Greeting due to the choice of informal attire and stance in a kitchen location.

street corner interpretive greeting

Photo credit Bill Reynolds

Street corners had been chosen in the old section of town, in Lisboa, to honour the lives of selected senior citizens. These were people known for their hospitality and community spirit - another form of celebrity or hero. This reflects a time when humans were intimately associated with their immediate environments and were a part of the sense of place. We need to recapture that feeling for visitors especially in our natural heritage environments – is there a role for more human tributes so visitors can see the relationships that others have had with nature, thereby planting seeds for experiences they could have?

Yes, we have our walls of fame but they are often sequestered away inside buildings and not out in the open where people will be reminded of them as they go about their daily lives or recreationally walk down a path. And who do we recognize? for what traits? The challenge to do better is out there. Grab it.

#3  Lisboa’s Bertrand Bookstore claims We are books since 1732 and profess to be the oldest bookstore in the world. It was bound to have something of interpretive value – and something novel as well. Lo and behold down a side corridor was a bulletin board with a relatively small poster mounted on it with the title “We Witnessed:” followed by a listing (see photo):

Bookstore poster

photo credit Bill Reynolds

Done from the perspective of the bookstore building and what it has witnessed over its long history since 1732 the list reflected historical events that would have happened in and around the walls and floor you are standing on. This was followed by a summary statement with a direct link back to why spending time in their business would be worthwhile- because they have the books that tell you all about these events. They hook you with a bunch of curiosities then inform you that within these walls you can begin to satisfy those curious itchings - if you stay awhile and explore. What a superb promotional piece! Just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to witnessing possibilities, as there are so many subjects to focus on - certainly not just major civilization upheavals.

 This got me thinking about the interpretive ramifications.

What do we have on our sites that could have witnessed significant cultural happenings or natural events without having to rely on an actual person or a role playing individual?

What about inanimate objects?

 I am sure you all have a wall or a floor, as in the above bookstore, or an artifact or a natural feature like a river or outcrop that could have witnessed interesting events taking place around or on them. If you are ok with a bit of fantasy on site, you may try introducing to your guests a specially trained interpreter with translation skills that can interpret “wallspeak” or “riverspeak” for your visitors. Have fun with it!

Share with us any imaginative ideas you have used in corners and along corridors in the comments section below. And please tell us about any innovative tributes you have seen employed. 

It’s Makeover Time in Interpretive Planning and Design!

“Experience world class transformation!”  This opening line for a book advertisement sure grabbed my attention. This leading descriptor was for World Class, a new book by William Haseltine, describing a remarkable turnaround of an underperforming, money-losing medical center ranked at the bottom for quality and safety, into a patient-centred, high quality ranking institution generating a financial surplus. In our field who wouldn’t want to be a visitor-centred high quality ranking institution generating a financial surplus. This month’s blog is not about the World Class book per se, but served as a catalyst to think about makeovers and transformations.

Frankly, interpretive planning and design is in need of such a makeover, and that might require a bit of a transformation. Businesses and organizations that want to thrive are always looking for a chance to up their game when visitor focus is involved.

credit Bill Reynolds (it is worth learning from local coffee shops who know how to plan a welcoming space)

We like to think that our EID blog readers are Interpreteers (swashbuckling interpreters of course) that are always looking for smart practices to up their game.

This World Class call to action reminded me of an article we received by John Veverka, well known training instructor and consultant in heritage tourism and interpretive master planning. He also shares our concern with stale, outdated interpretive planning and the need for state-of-the-art “experience” based interpretive planning. John’s article, written a few years ago, was titled Interpretive planning for the next millennium. 

Veverka is quite clear that what "experience" based planning does is to stop us from treating the visitor as a passive element at our interpretive sites. “We must plan not just interpretive media and services, but rather plan for a wide range of experience opportunities for visitors, from active and passive, to entertaining or quiet places of reflection.” The reason that most of our interpretive sites exist has to be based on a balance between managing and satisfying the needs of our site as well as being proactive in considering the needs of the new millennium visitor.

He advocates for incorporating some messy ideas from the marketing and business economy perspectives into the interpretive planning foundation. One established planning foundation is the historical objective-based planning where the site would define classic learning, behavioral, and emotional visitor objectives. Then benefit-based return-on-investment planning, primarily from the management perspective, is often layered on. In the new millennium we must be ensuring benefits are considered not only for the resource and the agency, but also for the visitor.   

Benefits: Product of the Product

John mentions the marketing concept of selling the "product" of the product as a way to keep benefits in mind. Our products for example, could be a self-guided storyboard, a guided walk, an exhibit, a reenactment, etc. The “product” of the product however, is what the visitor gains from this interaction. In our EID work we aim to incorporate these into our “visitor outcomes.”

Veverka provides 3 questioning examples from the marketing world:

·       Are companies selling drills (the product) – or holes? Customers only need a drill because they want a hole. The "hole" is the product of the product (which is the drill).

·       Are companies selling cosmetics (the product) – or hope? The latter because they want you to feel younger, happier, more attractive (the product of the product).

·       Are companies selling automobiles (the product) - or "status" or “rugged individualism” or …? It is not about the car’s features but it is about how you feel about yourself and how you appear to others.

What values ARE we “selling” at our heritage institutions?

credit Bill Reynolds

We want the visitors to value preservation of these heritage places but why should they? Because a visit to these sites can expose us first hand to these treasures that then can stimulate feelings and can fulfill many valued aspirations such as:

·         Accomplishment - sense of satisfaction

·         Beauty - giving pleasure to the spirit and senses

·         Community - providing a sense of unity/oneness, connection and belonging

·         Enlightenment - understanding through inspiration

·         Creativity - contributing something of your own doing

·         Harmony - experiencing natural relationships and feeling whole

·         Well Being - overall physical and mental health

·         Validation - recognition of oneself as worthy of respect

·         Wonder - awe in the presence of a creation beyond one's comprehension

The business world and the wellness sphere have a buzz phrase relating to this – go to a retreat in order to advance (your state of innovation and wellbeing). Heritage site visits could serve that purpose as well as assist people who value or want to:

·         raise and partially satisfy their curiosity,

·         be surprised, and delighted

·         challenge their perspectives

·         reduce their stress, unwind and gain a feeling of being restored

·         engage in social interactions

·         exercise and entertain both hemispheres of the brain (Left and Right directed)

 Is your site satisfying these wants? Try reviewing the site design and interpretive programmes against these checklists. How well are you letting potential visitors know that the site offers these benefits. Are you marketing products (trails, exhibits, etc.) or benefits (i.e. product of the product) that the visitor will receive?  Are you gathering testimonials and sharing them? Are you encouraging visitors to let their friends know about the site on social media?  Is it time for a makeover?

Remember you still want to sell the car or cosmetics in the end. You are tapping into these visitor benefits to accomplish why you exist and the need for support. Engaging in social interactions, for example, simply for the sake of social interaction misses the point. And most important these value laden experiences must be tied to the site purpose.

Exercising Left Brain - Right Brain 

The last bullet point above about left brain hemisphere (LH) and right brain hemisphere (RH) exercising warrants some further analysis because in reality both halves play a role in nearly everything we do. Do our interpretive experiences cater to both?  We tend to favour interpretation aimed at right brain thinkers (linear, logical and text oriented). In a “makeover” experiential world, we need to rethink ways to incorporate both hemispheres for visitors in terms of what they perceive and value.

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, has said that we are in the throes of moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. His premise is that business success and personal fulfillment will be based more and more on the values of high touch/high concept because high tech logical reasoning is no longer enough. High concept is the work in demand involving non-robotic capacities as in…

·         detecting patterns and opportunities,

·         creating artistic and emotional beauty,

·         crafting a satisfying narrative, and

·         combining seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.  

Heritage sites are a breeding ground of inspiration for these skills. If we were to position our sites in this way, who would you invite in to help out?

Pink says, "… for nearly a century our approach to life has been reductive and deeply analytical -the knowledge worker - manipulator of information and deployer of expertise." Interpretation has followed suit. A makeover is needed to appeal to the nonlinear, intuitive, holistic, and context oriented right hemisphere directed person.

 You can’t discuss right brain-left brain values and visitor benefits without delving into the subject of visitor attention and motivation. Funny thing is, when reading the note from John Veverka it jolted another memory recall – I need to check out the interpretation journal, interpNEWS, that he regularly compiles for the profession’s benefit. 

“If you want to become more familiar with the work of John Veverka visit www.heritageinterp.com.  In the left side index column under heritage interpretation training center you will find over 30 courses they offer, as well as interpNEWS, an international e-journal John edits.”

Lo and behold, the latest version of interpNEWS, January- February 2019, had an article titled, Engaging Visitor Attention: The Role of Interest, Workload, and Value by Stephen Bitgood. It further enhanced my deep dive into values and benefits at heritage sites.

Value is the engine of engagement

Stephen Bitgood is one of the preeminent scholars in visitor studies and has produced volumes of helpful research. His article states, “…visitor studies have repeatedly found that the deeper the level of engagement the more visitors learn, and the more likely visitors report satisfaction with their experience.” And don’t forget…visitor satisfaction is an aim that can translate to visitor support.

This specific study relates to the reading of exhibition content and the number of words per text passage as a key determinant of engagement level (the “less is more” adage comes to mind). Research shows that the major reason people choose to engage with interpretive material is based on value or benefit/cost, so you want to increase the benefit and decrease the cost to achieve greater perceived value. Greater the perceived value, the more likely visitors will deeply engage. 

Bitgood also witnessed that decreasing the visitor’s workload (time and effort) to engage with interpretive material meant a decrease in the perceived cost to engage. This appears to be most critical. The article hints at a direct correlation between visitor workload and words per text passage. (Note: the author provided no optimum range however). EID’ers believe that decreasing workload and increased engagement is directly correlated to the amount of text that directs visitors to action…to do something.

Remember visitors will participate in interpretive experiences based on a range of total body aspirations and different brain hemispheres. Which of the values mentioned above is your site ready to explore? Makeover anyone?

If you have an article or mini-case study to share on these topics, or if you would like our perspective cum analysis on any other interpretive matter, please write a comment and we will respond.