Innovation through practice-based research using a digital ‘heritage from below’ approach

Poole, Stephen

Abstract

Three Films: Ghosts in the Garden, A Knight’s Peril and Heritage Empath: Of Home and Each Other

These three films trace collaborative research and development work undertaken by Poole and the SME, Splash and Ripple, 2012-2018. Both Ghosts in the Garden and A Knight’s Peril challenged the conservatism of traditional guide books to historic sites by presenting researched historical content to audiences as an interactive choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) rather than a didactic guidebook and by interpreting each site’s history from the perspective of non-elite social actors (‘from below’). CYOA was chosen because it substitutes audience passivity with evaluative decision-making. Through situated audio sound-pools activated via ‘time radios’ and ‘echo horns’, audiences eavesdropped on past lives and explored historical problems. The National Trust commission to build AKP at Bodiam was won as a direct result of the success of GITG. It tested and expanded the format by transposing time periods and the historical content for each was drawn from archival research conducted by Poole and underpinned by his published work as a social historian. While GITG and AKP were designed to evoke third person historical sympathy, the third project, Empath, experimented with first person embodiment and examined the relationship between memory, heritage and identity. Poole’s research for Empath centred on the identification of quotidian themes arising from a series of oral interviews with second generation West African migrants. A composite narrative and a CYOA format was then developed in partnership with anthropologists, neurologists and oral historians. Poole’s objective throughout has been to devise and test new ways of approaching public audiences with history from below in timeframes from the medieval to the 20thC (a rarity in itself in the heritage sector) and to develop a methodology reflecting the way historians think and work, absorbing evidence and selecting from it to produce understanding.

• Other Type: Other
• Publication Date: Feb 11, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 11, 2021
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7083718
• Additional Information: Ghosts in the Garden - https://vimeo.com/60239838; ; A Knight's Peril - https://vimeo.com/134088548; ; Heritage Empath - https://vimeo.com/343290526