Talking About Heritage Workshops completed around Scotland on behalf of Historic Environment Scotland
“What do you talk about when discussing heritage? Your local park or favourite scenic view? The venue you experienced the best gig you've ever attended ? The distinctive ruined castle you visited as a child? Or perhaps the place you picture when you think of ‘home’. Our views on heritage makes our communities special.”
This is the topic that KMA and Reorient Places have been prompting people to explore in six ‘Talking About Heritage’ workshops across Scotland over the past month, on behalf of Historic Environment Scotland. From Hawick to Lerwick, we’ve had many a detailed conversation about what makes heritage special, and how people view, and engage with, heritage.
We asked contributors to consider not only how they currently view heritage, but also how they’d like to see places of heritage evolve into the future. This provided valuable insights into how people view change, the dynamic nature of heritage, especially in relation to things like inclusion and climate change.
Many of our Talking About Heritage conversations revealed common elements recurring all across the country.
Heritage is experiential
There was huge importance placed on the tangible experience of heritage places. Every attendee at our workshops brought forward a place that meant something to them, and discussed the first and subsequent times they interacted with that place – how there was an indescribable feeling of experiencing heritage that you can only get from being there. As much as documenting things online or recording stories can be important, this rarely competes with being in and around the physical place concerned.
An interesting addition to this idea was drawn from many people’s experiences of heritage places as a child. We found people felt more nostalgic and sentimental towards places that helped to shaped them in their youth or early childhood.
Heritage is not just history – but part of identity
Conversations often revolved around community power and influence in capturing and recording important local history – it is hugely linked to how people feel attachment to where they live. Community influence could come through securing local funding to play a larger role in physical preservation, or the contributing to recording oral history and local stories. Either way, people felt there should be more community action in relation to heritage, so that communities remain involved and connected to such places and their stories.
Communities want a voice
The importance of physical landscape or townscape setting, particularly in relation to features like pylons or windfarms in rural locations, for instance, proved to be a key conversation topic. People discussed how our continually evolving landscape can impact upon the important views and settings of our heritage elements, which affecting the experience of a heritage location.
These are just three short takeaway points from our six national workshops – there is far more detail to draw from each one. It is important to note the common threads between urban and rural workshop conversations regarding heritage preservation and what really matters about heritage to people who live in different parts of Scotland. Overall, people want heritage to be inclusive of their local experiences, sensitively responsive to change, and empowered and supported by community voices.
Heritage is not a static, closed and sealed system. Heritage can only be preserved and sustained in a changing society by people having conversations and contemplating meaningful action, along the lines of the sessions..
Therefore, we’d ask that you keep an eye out for this Talking About Heritage initiative – please take part in our survey, join in upcoming challenges, or participating in future online workshops. Visit Historic Environment Scotland’s webpage on this to stay in the loop.
We’d like to extend big thank you to all who have contributed so far, especially at the important workshops in Dundee, Glasgow, Hawick, Inverness, Lerwick and Ullapool. We hope to see you all again!
