This is part 1 of 3. Link to part 2 and part 3.
Retelling old stories — a new approach to local heritage sites
In the upcoming months a challenge ahead at Västernorrlands museum, Sweden, is re-telling the story about local witch trials of the late 17th century. This is on the agenda together with reconstructing one of the permanent exhibitions of the museum, covering the same period. The historic events will be retold in a new type of experience considering smart tourism, place-based experiences and storytelling with social impact. In three blog posts I will be sharing some thoughts on what new perspectives will be useful to achieve sustainablity, and how these often-told stories can have further impact and attract a new audience.
Parallel to this the museum is currently developing a concept for a dissemination project in collaboration with The Experience Alchemists, that will investigate tangible hands-on solutions for a new heritage experience.
The witch trials in Sweden during the 17th century are historical events familiar to most Swedish people at least the very core of the story, the one that is most often retold. This is a story about women who were accused of witchcraft, children who testified, victims who were executed and about the church’s involvement in the legal proceedings most often led by priests.
The story of the witch trials in Torsåker in Ångermanland is unique, as it is the single largest mass execution in peacetime in Sweden to date. It is already mediated today by organizations such as Kramfors municipality, the local Witch Museum in Prästmon and the regional Västernorrland Museum, but also by individuals, genealogists and others. In the summer of 2021, Swedish National Radio also released a podcast about these events.[1]
There are however many reasons to continue to tell the story in new shapes and formats. Among other things to reach new audiences and to highlight a region with a rich cultural history, but also to further unwrap the complex events that led to the executions. Retelling the story should explore extended social impact and the contribution to a sustainable society.
The role of cultural heritage in society
A new cultural heritage dissemination project needs to start by looking at how the events impact the local society today, and who is telling the story. Generally, cultural heritage is used in several different ways for many different purposes by individuals as well as groups and organizations. Heritage has also had and still has great significance on a larger level regionally and nationally, often for the purpose of creating identity, sometimes also becoming politics.
Sten Rentzhog writes about the constant presence of the past and believes that the consequence of repressing history is making society vulnerable. The knowledge and experience we can gain from history can be empowering and an important source of inspiration. The past is thus an indispensable tool for developing our current thoughts and perspectives, allowing us to understand and see context in our own time (Rentzhog, 2014 19, 22).
At the same time, the way in which people consume and use cultural heritage is of course affected by how it is communicated. Peter Aronsson describes how the use of cultural heritage is framed by contemporary values, which in turn affect who mediates and consumes cultural heritage. These values are characterized by an established national framework and a desire to create explanations that make sense. Historically, publicly funded organizations have been instrumental in shaping historical cultures. During the latter half of the 20th century, there has been a shift from a state perspective to civil society and the commercial sector, which, among other things, has opened for popular history dissemination projects, often with great impact (Aronsson 2005, 30–31).
Of course, several institutions in society are still assigned to the task of communicating cultural heritage, such as museums and archives. At the same time, we see cultural heritage being packaged and portrayed by more and more individuals, groups, non-profit organizations and the commercial sector, all with different purposes and voices. The complex nature of heritage, and the diversity of producers and interpretations, requires an ongoing dialogue about, and analysis of, the processes that shape cultural heritage, processes that have often led to a one-sided perspective on our common history. There has also, as mentioned, been a shift from a mainly public sector and state perspective to many different mediators and producers, which makes it important to ask if this actually has created room for more voices or whether it is still the prevailing cultural values and stories that are being translated into new channels and formats.
In order to prevent a dominant voice from continuing to be the central figure in the dissemination of cultural heritage, we need to avoid what Pia Laskar calls “casual repetition of ideas”, ie. a retelling of a dominant perspective that privileges certain groups and marginalizes others (Laskar, 2019 48). This requires for example that museums actively strive to make visible, but also question the historical and contemporary, processes that have led to and shaped today’s history use and history culture. This also includes the museums’ own interpretations which are manifested, for example, in exhibitions, labels and classifications. For museums, it then becomes an important task, as Pia Laskar points out, to pay attention to these interpretations and how they are colored by different kinds of contexts, both in time and space (Laskar 2019, 51).
This, and the following two blog posts are based on the perspective that cultural heritage is shaped by the values of the past and present, and society’s need to use cultural heritage for meaningful purposes, and that the voices heard most strongly and whose interpretation often prevails, are of the dominant society. Active efforts are needed to make hidden stories visible. Furthermore, the starting point is also the assumption that people’s personal relationships with objects and places are important parts of the use of history, which becomes highly relevant for the dissemination of cultural heritage.
Retelling the story of the witch trials of Torsåker in Ångermanland requires analyzing current impact of the events in the local society, who is telling the story today and how, and finally what story is being retold and why. It also requires understanding the meaning of objects, places and monuments to locals and visitors. By answering these questions, it will be possible to produce a heritage experience with impact which can become a useful tool for the audience in developing new thoughts and perspectives and to contribute to a more sustainable society.
The upcoming two blogposts will discuss how to adapt the story to support a sustainable society, and explore methods that could be useful to achieve this goal, with a focus on personal experiences, digital technologies, an ecosystem approach and storytelling. Click here for to part two.
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This is part 1 of 3. The three blog posts are a revised version of a paper delivered at the course Disseminating Cultural Heritage, Umeå University, in December 2021. The list of literature is referring to all three blog posts.
Literature
Aronsson, Peter (2004). Historiebruk: att använda det förflutna. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Blumenthal, Veronica (2020) Consumer immersion in managed visitor attractions: The role of individual responses and antecedent factors, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 20:1, 4–27, DOI: 10.1080/15022250.2020.1725624
Buoningcontri, P & Marasco, A. (2017) Enhancing Cultural Heritage Experiences with Smart Technologies: An integrated experiential framework. European Journal of Tourism Research 17:83–101.
du Cros, Hilary. (2001). du Cros, H. 2001 A New Model to Assist in Planning for Sustainable Cultural Heritage Tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research 3(2): 165–70.. International Journal of Tourism Research. 3. 10.1002/jtr.297.
Cuomoa, M.T., Tortorab, D, Foroudic. P, Giordanod, A, Festae, G. & Metallo, G. (2021) Digital transformation and tourist experience co-design: Big social data for planning cultural tourism. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 162, 2021, 120345, ISSN 0040–1625, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120345.
Gretzel, U, Sigala, M, Zheng, X & Koo, C. (2015), Smart tourism: foundations and developments. Electron Markets (2015) 25:179–188.
Jenkins, Henry (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
Jönsson, Lars-Eric & Svensson, Birgitta (red.) (2005). I industrisamhällets slagskugga: om problematiska kulturarv. Stockholm: Carlsson.
Laskar, Pia (2019) Den outställda sexualiteten. FoU rapport, Statens historiska museer; 18. Stockholm: Statens historiska museer, 2019, s. 125. http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1357922/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Murzyn-Kupisz, Monika (2012): Cultural, economic and social sustainability
of heritage tourism: Issues and challenges, Economic and Environmental Studies (E&ES), ISSN 2081–8319, Opole University, Faculty of Economics, Opole, Vol. 12, Iss. 2, pp. 113–133
Palombini, Augusto (2017), Storytelling and telling history. Towards a grammar of narratives for Cultural Heritage dissemination in the Digital Era, Journal of Cultural Heritage, Volume 24, 2017, Pages 134–139, ISSN 1296–2074, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2016.10.017.
Petti, L, Trillo, C & Ncube Makore, B (2020), Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Developlment Targets: A Possible Harmonisation? Insights from the European Perspective. Sustainability 2020, 12, 926.
Popoli, Z & Derda, I (2021) Developing experiences: creative process behind the design and production of immersive exhibitions, Museum Management and Curatorship, 36:4, 384–402, DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2021.1909491
Rampazzo Gambarato, Renira (2012), Signs, Systems and Complexity of Transmedia Storytelling. Estudos em Comunicação, Volume 12, Number unknown, 2012, pp. 69–83(15). Directory of Open Access Journals.
Vermeeren, Arnold, Calvi, Licia & Sabiescu, Amalia (red.) (2018). Museum experience design: crowds, ecosystems and novel technologies. Cham: Springer.
[1] https://sverigesradio.se/haxmorden (2021–12–19)
