If you’re not worried about what artificial intelligence means to our profession, you’re probably not paying attention. When I was a kid, computers were still largely the stuff of science fiction. And in those days we used to dream of how much better our lives would be when we had them. My science-nerdy friends and …
It’s only two-way if you’re actually listening to what they tell you.
Over the course of my forty-year career (yikes!) I have made a long shift from natural history to cultural history interpretation. The transition has been… interesting. See, when you interpret birds or rocks or stars, you generally don’t argue for those things’ moral goodness or purity. Yes, you might defend their place within their ecosystem …
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, …
“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”
Historic weapons demonstrations are popular; I get that. Big old guns are cool, and special events where visitors can not only hear them go boom but wear the uniforms and light the fuses sounds like a great time. But something has been bothering me about these programs for a while now, and the further I …
(This article first appeared in Legacy Magazine, published by the National Association of Interpretation.) When they say “can’t”, we need to re-train our ears to hear “choose not to”. Two years ago, I fulfilled a lifelong dream and visited the Republic of Ireland. Among its many treasures (endless green hillsides, first-rate beer, friendly locals), I …