Heritage
This discussion board is to be used for conversing on Remembrance, Commemoration and Memorials in relation to Heritage. Particpants may begin new lines of discussion for others to comment on or add views. The aim is to offer an opportunity for debate, discussion and to stimulate research.
As a starting point for discussion I would like the raise the distinction, and ask if it is a useful one, between heritage sites that are so constructed, such as the NMA (and the individual memorials in particular) and those sites that come to have the designation attached to them subsequent to their creation. It seems to me that while there is a lot of overlap between the iconography of such sites (battlefield memorials and those found at the NMA for instance) there are many differences that could usefully be explored. I hope to return to this issue from time to time and to raise it at the February 2010 meeting. Does anyone feel like moving the discussion along, if only a tad?
Steve Mills
We may be confusing our use of words here, but my anxiety about the language of ‘heritage’ refers to the possible ‘commercialisation’ and ‘packaging’ of a ‘remembrance experience’ along the lines of a theme-park. Besides raising issues of public taste / design etc, it suggests there may be a set of emotions and responses we are ‘supposed’ to have in the presence of certain memorials / places etc. Whereas the grief and mixed emotions of pride / loss/ waste that individual and families may have may be very different.
I think there is a problem relating to definition. I have rather a negative view of ‘heritage’ as involving putting the past into aspic, so we can all look at it but not interpret it in a way different to the accepted view of society (whatever that is). As an example of ‘anti-heritage’ we can look to the Spanish paradors, where old monasteries, castles and the like have been carefully rebuilt in an original style but with modern conveniences to serve as luxury hotels. They have combined the beauty of the past with the needs of the present and have done so very successfully. In the UK we tend to take a ruined castle, preserve the ruins, and expect people to reverentially walk around them, looking but not touching, in the howling wind and rain. Why? Can we not rebuild the past to make better use of it as part of the present?
When talking of battlefields we can look at Bosworth field, where it was shown some years ago that the actual battle tooko place at a different site to that suggested at the heritage centre. When I asked them about this they denied the alternative explanation, remaining fixed on their world view. Only since have they come to accept the evidence.
I agree with Mark about us being supposed to have a set of responses to given memorials or places. Why should this be? I think this is another example of the failure of heritage. I have made comments in another section of this discussion (psychology and religion) about becoming ‘fixated’ at a stage of mourning. In psychology it is seen as unhealthy to become fixated; it is better to work through one’s problems. By using heritage in the way we do we are fixated, it is psychologically and culturally unhealthy. It is a form of living in the past rather than the present. Our memorials and sites are in the present, and should be seen as such.