Heritage Interpretation Research Articles

Was tun, wie umgehen mit dem ›Dissonanten Kulturerbe‹?

Abstract The notion of dissonance expands on Norbert Huse’s concept of Uncomfortable Monuments to include the identification of conflicting heritage communities emerging from divergent practices of use and memory and differing political, cultural and social affiliations. This notion can be ascribed to any cultural heritage and invokes multi-perspective approaches to research, participation and mediation strategies. In border areas and sites of conflict, the dissonance model can become a laboratory for diverse site- and situation-specific perspectives on and inclusive processes of negotiation of existing cultures of memory and commemoration. Fostering the individuals’ right to participate in the process of definition, research into, and interpretation of cultural heritage, the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (2005) provides instructions on the study of dissonant cultural heritage and explicitly recommends the democratic participation of different perspectives in the shared co-production of heritage.

"The Object’s the Thing: the Writings of Yorke Edwards, a Pioneer of Heritage Interpretation in Canada" by Richard Kool and Robert A. Cannings, 2021. [book review

"The Object’s the Thing: the Writings of Yorke Edwards, a Pioneer of Heritage Interpretation in Canada" by Richard Kool and Robert A. Cannings, 2021. [book review

A conceptual framework for understanding the intrinsic contestation of cultural heritage tourism in Chinese qiaoxiang

Cultural heritage in Chinese qiaoxiang is constructed where Chinese and foreign cultures gather, connecting overseas Chinese with their country of origin. However, conflicts concerning this type of heritage comes out frequently, such as house reconstruction clash, host-guest conflicts and destructive competition in heritage tourism. The economic and cultural duality of heritage is perceived as the source of intrinsic contestation in heritage tourism, and conflicts related to different types of heritage may take on different appearances and causes. Extant tourism studies have generalised cultural heritage in Chinese qiaoxiang, neglecting the unique characteristics of the diaspora and their corresponding influence on heritage protection and utilisation, that makes the reasons for these conflicts remain unclear. By answering the basic question of what heritage is, this research proposes an analytical framework to understand the intrinsic contestation of cultural heritage tourism in Chinese qiaoxiang. The paper points out that the contradiction between ‘ancestral root culture’ and modernity and between flow and stillness is the trigger for intrinsic contestation. The paper also summarises the core issues in conflicts that need further discussion by answering the questions of ‘what is heritage’, ‘whose heritage’ and ‘how to interpret heritage’. The core issues include heritage selection and identification, the commercialisation of ‘home’, heritage interpretation and so on.

Study on the Service Design of Ouyue Cultural Tourism based on the Concept of Heritage Interpretation

Heritage interpretation is an important element in enhancing Ouyue cultural tourism services. Based on the perspective of heritage interpretation, this study explores the design ideas and models of Ouyue cultural tourism services, and ultimately realizes design support for its tourism service development. After exploring the tangible nature of cultural heritage and the intangible nature of experience in tourism services, and combining with relevant research on heritage interpretation and service design, this study review the process of heritage interpretation experience design in existing Ouyue cultural tourism services. Finally, design model of tourism services is constructed based on the perspective of heritage interpretation. The effectiveness of the design model was verified. The design practice has been practically verified using the example of the miner's village in Fude Bay, Wenzhou. According to the three stages of research and analysis, design planning, as well as verification and evaluation, this study analyzes and reconstructs the interpretation connotation, medium and content in the model, as well as continuously improves the manifestation of Ouyue cultural heritage, which help to not only better present the historical information and humanistic connotation of Ouyue culture but also realize the orderly development of Ouyue cultural heritage interpretation. Therefore, this study concludes design points of the heritage interpretation experience with service as the core.

Trans-Boundary Legislative Impact Assesment of the Kailash Sacred Landscapes

The Kailash Sacred Landscapes evokes a deep rooted religious affiliation for the Hindus in India, Nepal and the Buddhists in India, Nepal and Tibet Autonomous Region or the Xizang Autonomous Region. A myriad of international conventions, charters, declarations and guidelines emanating from UNESCO and ICOMOS and IUCN, pertaining to cultural landscapes and sacred sites have been documented and applied but the issues pertaining to the transboundary integrated approach remains abstract and obscure and remains to be evolved. In India, China and Nepal, since the ratification of World Heritage Convention, 1972, there are national legislations that recognises the notion of cultural heritage, relics, monuments and sites but does not recognise the notion of cultural landscapes, primarily because the interpretation of heritage is often monument based conservation or of built heritage. In the domain of natural heritage, the environment and the biodiversity Acts function in water-tight compartments and are not in coordination with their cultural counterpart. The article aims to investigate and study the coherent issues pertaining to the nature-culture linkages and conservation relating to transboundary cultural landscape of Kailash Sacred Landscapes. The legislative framework of China, Nepal and India are taken into account, by exploring, comparing and distinguishing the vagueness in the creation and representation of cultural landscapes as defined or interpreted in the international conventions and charters. While studying the modes of adaptation, the article also explores the constitution and the role of the stakeholders (actors and institutions), local, intra-national and trans-national in the adaptation of a harmonious legislative framework.

Research on Innovation Strategy and Design of Tourism Service Experience in the Construction of Oujiang Scenery Poem Route

There are four poetry routes have already planned in development framework of poetry culture in Zhejiang province, one of which lies in Oujiang. Service experience is now becoming a center of cultural construction as continuous working progress facilitating this poem route access to a good future. This paper applies the concept of service design to the construction of Oujiang Scenery Poem route tourism, taking the core area of Daluoshan Scenic Area as the object of practice. Through field research on the existing tourism services in the area, insight into the service contact points and user pain points in the touring scenario, and finally proposes the tourist-centred tourism service innovation strategy and design practice. The research found that there are four major problems in the tourism services of Daluoshan Scenic Area: lagging infrastructure, loose management order, confusing guidance system and weak heritage interpretation. Based on this, this paper constructs a leisure tourism service design scheme for Daluoshan, which integrates online and offline scenario experiences to optimise the flow and experience of the scenery poem route tourism, which will provide a useful reference for promoting the construction of the Oujiang poetry route tourism.

The Sacra Infermeria—a focus group evaluation of an augmented reality cultural heritage experience

ABSTRACT The digital representation of our past has long been an important tool in the interpretation of cultural heritage in museums. The recent rise in the use of Augmented Reality (AR) has seen various approaches to adding dynamic information to existent artefacts. The challenge is even greater when uncertainty further complexifies the represented history. This paper presents a critical analysis of an AR installation in the Sacra Infermeria museum in Valletta, Malta. After a description of the AR configuration of the installation, we present a thematic analysis carried out from a multidisciplinary focus group of 11 researchers in the field of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN), from three perspectives: the technological implementation of the AR experience, the historical accuracy, gamification and the influence of social media-centred design, and the representation of the complexity arising from the uncertainty of history. In the light of the results of the multidisciplinary focus group, we provide a list of recommendations and heuristics at the end of the article.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ROOF DECORATIVE ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS OF RUMAH LIMAS BUMBUNG PERAK (RLBP) TOWARDS HERITAGE INTERPRETATION OF PERAK TENGAH

Rumah Limas Bumbung Perak (RLBP) is one of the traditional Malay houses of Perak that can be seen in Perak Tengah. Perak Tengah is one of the regions in Perak with a rich collection of historical remnants such as traditional houses, tombs, and arts and crafts. The cultural heritage value it has is highly potential to be highlighted that can help boost the area's rural tourism. However, the lack of heritage interpretation due to limited research has disabled the effort to promote the rural heritage of Perak Tengah. Therefore, this research aims to understand and interpret the roof decorative architectural components of one of the traditional Malay houses of Perak, which is the RLBP, as part of the tangible heritage of Perak Tengah. Data collection was conducted using multiple case studies. A total of 20 roof decorative architectural components of RLBP have been analysed in the data analysis. The findings of this research contribute toward establishing the character and identity of the decorative architectural components of the RLBP as one of the tangible heritage values of Perak Tengah, thus enhancing the heritage interpretation of the area.

PERKEMBANGAN INSTITUSI MUZIUM EROPAH DALAM MEMPENGARUHI KEWUJUDAN MUZIUM DI MALAYSIA

Museums play an important role in preserving and conserving all artifacts related to the past history as well as the heritage and culture of a society's civilization. Malaysia as a country that consists of various races and rich in various heritages and cultures, the museum institution plays an important role in preserving the heritage of knowledge for future generations. Museum institutions have undergone changes over time in producing an excellent management in preserving knowledge of past history. The development of museums at the European level is seen to have influenced the entry of the ideology of the field of museums in Malaysia. This study uses a qualitative method by analyzing the research data on the history of the development of museums in the world until it was brought in by the British colonial to Malaysia before independence. The focus of the study focuses on how and what is the influence brought by the west in museum institutions in Malaysia. The results show that, the Renaissance philosophy practiced by Europeans around the 14th century, has urged them to sail out to the ocean and explore other regions. This indirectly led to colonization of non-European territories. In the British colonial context, their arrival to colonize Malaya was not empty handed, but brought in colonial knowledge which later became the basis for the establishment of museum institutions in Malaysia. However, the interpretation of artifacts, history, heritage and culture that is euro-centric, led to the implementation of the decolonization of museums after independence. This is so that a local history can be interpreted correctly through the point of view and knowledge of the local community.

Is colonial heritage negative or not so much? Debating heritage discourses and selective interpretation of Kulangsu, China

Heritage is in essence dissonant, especially colonial heritage in postcolonial nations. Via questionnaire surveys and interviews, this study investigates Kulangsu in Xiamen, China, a colonial heritage site mainly developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, to unveil the local government’s authorised heritage discourse (AHD) of the site and how tourists perceive the colonial past of Kulangsu and construct their own heritage discourse(s). Results show that, when considering the colonial history of the site, neither the AHD promoted by the authorities nor the tourists’ lay discourses are necessarily negative. However, tension implicitly arises between the tourists’ demand for comprehensive heritage information and the authorities’ selective interpretation of the site. Although the AHD affects lay discourses to some extent, most tourists expect the authorities to present more complete and neutral information about heritage so they can reflect and forge their own conception of colonial legacies. From a critical heritage studies perspective, this tension reflects the power imbalance between the authorities and the tourists and reminds the authorities and heritage experts to rethink heritage tourism and conservation in terms of heritage interpretation. This paper, therefore, calls for additional reflection on the legitimacy of selective interpretation, which implicates a complex process of intricate reasoning that is underpinned by the power imbalance between the authorities and the tourists, ultimately resulting in an AHD.

Smart Heritage for Urban Sustainability: A Review of Current Definitions and Future Developments

Smart heritage is still novel in heritage discourse, with a few relevant review articles. In this regard, a specific interpretation of smart architectural heritage and a framework for instructing its development is lacking. This article reviews the literature on smart heritage in sustainable development to fill the knowledge gap. As a methodology for this study, the integrative review approach and thematic analysis are adopted to review references located at the crossroads of historic, smart, and sustainable disciplines. The review and interpretation draw on literature from relevant fields to understand implementations, current states, and support to interpret smart heritage. Review outcomes indicate that smart heritage is becoming dynamic as technologies are increasingly applied to more detailed heritage branches. This article lists the factors that heritage should possess to be defined as smart, and it provides a framework that might be followed to achieve the aims of this discourse by stating that smart heritage discussions are relevant to smart cities, as they may have a mutual effect and interact to promote each other.

Below Victory

Recent advances in Ground Penetrating Radar have caused the imaging technology to pivot from a simple construction engineering tool to a valuable new option for archaeology. Newfound abilities to model sound echoes resonating through stone have revealed archeological discoveries where excavation is not possible. Working with a transdisciplinary team, the artist secured a GPR scan of 2,000-year-old Gallo-Roman temple ruins below the plaza of a gothic cathedral in France. The technology's sounding image of the hidden site became a visual language that was explored in a 2-year series of artworks based on the discovery. The art + science research project resulted in data visualizations across many creative media including site-specific public trompe l'oeil, augmented reality, and hundreds of design experiments. Using the GPR dataset as a foundational resource in art-making, the project expanded the interpretation of Digital Heritage. Collectively, the works reinforced the understanding of a site hidden since Antiquity but also considered public non-sites in pandemic times. The advances in this scanning technology proved to be a powerful creative tool to highlight themes of how we protect and understand heritage, how we create public experiences in socially distanced times, and our responsibility to continually reconsider complex history.

New Frontiers of Applied Digital Humanities in the Italian Cultural Heritage Sector: The Case of the Domus Aurea

ABSTRACT The advent of digital technologies in the cultural heritage sector has revolutionized our critical engagement with the visual arts. The possibility of virtually reconstructing highly fragmented contexts has contributed to a deeper historical awareness of heritage, and has raised the level of demand for cultural education. This article considers and critically engages with two case studies, exploring the diverse methodological aspects employed in the creation of digital reconstructions, and ultimately reflecting on the philological use of primary sources. The two case studies are the Domus Aurea Experience (2017) and Raffaello e la Domus Aurea: L’invenzione delle grottesche (2021). They both aim at offering an experiential interpretation of cultural heritage via digital technologies and storytelling, highlighting the need for shared norms in the processes of digital reconstructions and restoration of fragmented or deteriorated artefacts or structures. Their analysis fosters a deeper understanding of technology as an enhancer of scientific content.

The “(Water) Canvas” as a Tool For the Analysis, Interpretation and Planning of Water Territories and Heritage

Today, urban territories are under pressure to accommodate all the needs of growing cities. New designs and approaches are needed that build on historical developments and respond to the shifting and overlapping needs of water, cities and their territories. Due to these inexhaustible demands, it is often common to overlook sustainable development and heritage. However, diagrammatic analysis such as the canvas approach can help us understand how people have changed cities and institutions over time and allows us to consider complex economic, political, social and cultural interactions. This ecosystem approach opens a new path for territories and structures aimed at promoting dialogue between citizens and those who are key players in the sustainable development of cities. Together with mapping, the canvas helps build systemic and evolutionary resilience of water systems and resources, incorporating cultural and ecological values.

Contemporary Residential Areasas an Example of Tradition-led Urban Designin Islamic Cities. Case study of Jazan in Saudi Arabia

This article focuses on how modern housing environment is shaped via the specifics of construction in extremely challenging weather conditions in the cities of Saudi Arabia. With the overall goal that modern housing must be eco- and human-friendly in mind, the authors have attempted to identify the characteristic features of the Islamic cities and traditional local methods of construction. The article presents typical solutions of local architecture and urban plans, expecting that they might render significant guidelines for the spatial organisation of modern cities. A case study of Jazan city and its neighbourhood has been intended to analyse not only the spatial design of the city but also a recently worked out Masterplan. Both the architecture and the urban planning of Jazan city might serve as a good example of modern interpretation of heritage that underlies high quality housing environment.

Between Interpretation and Leadership: The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the Narrative of Tour Guides

The article presents the problem of interpreting the heritage of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) by local guides. The text is the result of a research project aimed at investigating what influences the style of guided tours of the CEZ and, consequently, how its heritage is presented to tourists. The empirical material collected during interviews and participatory observation is analyzed in relation to the constructivist paradigm of heritage interpretation. The experience of visiting a heritage site offers visitors the opportunity to get personally involved and reflect on the past. At the same time, they require specific leadership and group management skills on the part of the interpreters. The greatest challenge that tour guides face in the Zone is to balance the safety of the visitors with their own individual interpretation of the heritage. Even more so, safety not only structures the tour's itinerary but is also a fundamental motive for universalizing the guides' narratives.

Interdisciplinary nature of the study of the interpretation of cultural heritage

Interdisciplinary nature of the study of the interpretation of cultural heritage

3D Digital Preservation, Presentation, and Interpretation of Wooden Cultural Heritage on the Example of Sculptures of the FormaViva Kostanjevica Na Krki Collection

The paper presents an interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of the FormaViva collection of wooden sculptures exhibited outdoors in a natural environment near the Božidar Jakac Art Museum in Kostanjevica na Krki in Slovenia. The study focuses on 3D graphic representations of sculptures created with photogrammetry and 3D modelling. The results are photorealistic renderings, interactive presentations, 3D printed reproductions, jewellery, and interpretive animations. The research results show that graphic documentation techniques on 3D models allow for a more detailed investigation of the original structural identity of the sculpture. By incorporating 3D and interactive technologies, we are expanding the usability of cultural heritage objects. By using interpretive techniques that have led to jewellery and interpretive animations in our research, we not only breathe new life into the sculptures, but also enrich the stories of the sculptures with our own experiences of the sculptural work.

Tourist Perspectives on Agricultural Heritage Interpretation—A Case Study of the Qingtian Rice-Fish System

The interpretation of an agricultural heritage system significantly affects the communication and connection between tourists and heritage sites. Taking the rice-fish system at Qingtian as an example, this study applies field investigations, a tourist questionnaire survey, and face-to-face in-depth interviews to explore agricultural heritage interpretation through the gaze of tourists. A two-dimensional framework integrating interpretation contents and forms for agricultural heritage systems is developed and adopted to guide the analysis. Research results show that tourists’ overall recognition of agricultural heritage features of the Qingtian rice-fish system is not high. Regarding interpretation contents, the rice-fish agricultural landscape, traditional cuisine, and biodiversity exhibit higher awareness. Compared to the static and interactive interpretations, participatory interpretations demonstrated high effectiveness in enhancing visitors’ understanding of agricultural heritage systems, thus raising tourist awareness for heritage conservation. Considering the high potential and the current low level of heritage interpretation, theoretical and managerial implications are then discussed to enhance agricultural heritage interpretations in both content and form to support the conservation and sustainable development of such dynamic agricultural heritage systems.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction