In the last two years, virtually all of my projects have taken on a consultation component. At some point in an interpretive plan, an exhibit project, or a visitor experience strategy, the client needs to involve the community. These include Indigenous groups, naturalist organizations, historical societies, neighbourhood associations, and the like. Not all of these …
If you’re going to dive into TikTok, you might as well try to do some good in the world. Addressing the settler-colonist that lives inside us can be difficult, emotional work. And the more I dive into the steep learning curves of decolonization, the more I realize that it is unfair to expect affected communities—Black, …
What is the way to your visitors’ hearts? Understanding their problem spaces—and imaging solutions—is a first step.
Once upon a time… …if you wanted to learn about a historic site or park—or the contents of a museum or aquarium—you had two choices. You needed to visit it, or you had to go to a library and get a book about it. If you were lucky, and if the site were famous enough, …
Read more “Interpretation, Good Writing, and Sensory Experience”
Those who fail to learn from the 1970s are doomed to repeat them… …and I’m old enough to tell you it won’t be as much fun as pop culture would have you believe, ABBA soundtracks notwithstanding. I was recently transported back to that era against my will, in the form of an interpretive walk. It …
Every great travel experience has three parts: the anticipation, the realization, and the recollection. Those of us who deliver interpretive programs—guided walks, talks, workshops, dialogues, and the like—have long placed ourselves squarely in the second of those three phases: the delivery/realization of the visit. With the shift in recent years to new communications tools, it’s …
If I didn’t already know what interpreters do, this definition wouldn’t tell me. The National Association for Interpretation has released their newly-updated definition of interpretation. It’s a project they’ve been working on for three years; I’m going to take a moment to try to describe to you why I think it’s a bit of a, …
Read more “A swing and a miss: NAI’s new definition of interpretation”
“Can I tell this story?” As an interpretive planner and writer, I find I’m hearing this question more and more often: how do we Settlers know when a story is appropriate for us to tell? How do we know if we have the right to tell it? When is interpretive storytelling a form of cultural …
Read more “Interpretive Storytelling and the Problem of Appropriation”
If you’re not investing in the 3D elements of your interpretive sign, you’re missing a powerful opportunity to connect people to your message. (Note: the visual examples here are not my work. Click to follow through to the presenting agency.) About ten years ago when I started producing interpretive signs, I gave zero thought to …
About ten years ago, when I was an employee at Parks Canada, we identified a need for more holistic planning. We already had tools such as management plans, marketing plans, and interpretive plans: what was missing was something to tie it all together. The Visitor Experience (VE) Strategy was born. It’s an ambitious, high-level kind …