Tolnay Zsuzsa (KÖME) és Alexander Colvine az Interpret Europe 2023-as konferenciáján tartott közös workshopjukon azzal a kérdéssel foglalkoztak, hogy mi minden lehet „jelentés” interpretációs tanulási környezetben. Tréningjükön ezzel kapcsolatos gyakorlatokat mutattak be, amelyeket az Interpret Europe hálózat más képzései is hasznosíthatnak majd a jövőben. A bejegyzés angolul olvasható.
This year’s Interpert Europe Conference was organised under the motto: Creating learning landscapes through heritage interpretation. Several members and collaborators of KÖME participated at the conference in Sighișoara between 11 and 16 May, 2023.
In a series of posts we give you an insight into our experiences and contributions during the Interpret Europe Conference 2023 in Sighișoara.
Zsuzsa Tolnay (KÖME) and Alexander Colvine held a common workshop discussing what meaning can be if we speak about interpretive learning landscapes.
Oftentimes, meaning making is misunderstood in heritage management and heritage interpretation practice: as if a heritage object or site had only one finite meaning. Heritage interpretation, at its best, is a democratic procedure in which visitors are not simply presented with “the” meaning, but are encouraged to make their own.
This multivocal understanding of meaning was in line with the main conference theme of creating interpretive landscapes, even if in its figurative sense.
Aim of the workshop:
This workshop featured a blend of theory and practical exercises to explore and give a deeper understanding to meaning, taking it from a concept to something more ‘real’. It explored the relationship between meanings, inspiration and provocation that engage intellectual and emotional intelligence, building bridges between objects and people making it a personal experience.
What happened?
The workshop was conducted by Zsuzsa Tolnay (HU), and Alexander Colvine (FR), both certified trainers of Interpret Europe.
As the 1.5-hour workshop took place on the last day of the conference (15 May 2023), it heavily built on the participants own experiences and understanding of the city of Sigishoara. After a short introduction and brief presentation on basic heritage interpretation principles, participants actively demonstrated the multifaceted nature of meaning making in a three-stage exercise. In the first phase they summarized in a single sentence what the city meant to them (as if they were telling about the experience on their return home). While they all dealt with the very same heritage site, already at this stage it was obvious that every single “meaning” was different from all the others.
In the next phase they formed pairs and had to work on a sentence that was meant to tell the city’s story to a person with a specific background. So, this time their task was to become heritage interpreters make the city a meaningful place to this person. All the roles were relevant in the context of the history of the city (e.g. architect, visitor of Saxon ancestry, etc.).
In the next phase they not only shared their short interpretive sentences, but explained the thinking behind. It was followed by a facilitated discussion on the effect of role shifts, most importantly, the shift in real and anticipated motivations, perspectives.
The whole workshop was tracked by the participants themselves, as they actually wrote the various sentences on stickers, and put them on their clothes. This way, the wide array of meanings became tangible, truly creating an interpretive landscape.
Future dissemination
The structure of the workshop and the particular exercise were first tried and tested. It was successfully implemented. While it built heavily on the specific event and the location, in fact it is adaptable to and replicable in other contexts. We plan to use the workshop curriculum in future trainings, and submit it to Interpret Europe, thus further disseminating the results among interpretive trainers across Europe.
