Bow Your Views to Reviews

Predavanje na konferenciji Interpret Europe

I ove godine se vidimo na konferenciji Interpret Europe, a održat ću i jedno predavanje. Evo opisa: 

Bow your views to reviews – adapting, people-pleasing, and self-censoring in interpretation

Has it ever happened to you that you wanted to do something out of the box with your interpretive project, but you had to tame your aspirations to get some funding? Have you ever had an encounter with a guest who was blatantly dismissive of democratic viewpoints, and you let it slip?

Working with tourists from different parts of the world or with locals in a strongly divided society can make it very challenging to remain interpretive. Sometimes, even people who are considered heritage interpreters occasionally give up entirely on interpretation, especially on the ideas that are being discussed at this very conference, only to find work, create heritage-related projects, attract, and keep the audiences. Iva, who will lead this presentation, openly admits she is one of those people.

There is a limitation for value-based heritage interpretation in practice. Interpreters need to check many boxes. They should be enthusiastic about the heritage they’re presenting and, at the same time, ready to lead a fruitful and meaningful discussion that challenges harmful views. People who are enthusiastic about anything are often passionate, and it’s hard to be a diplomat when a fire is burning within you. They should also love people and have significant empathy, while resisting the urge to be too accommodating.

The presentation will hardly be able to answer all of these doubts, but will open a discussion based on the awkward real-life examples from the presenter’s extensive experience.