Heritage Interpretation - Definitions of Heritage Interpretation

Definitions of Heritage Interpretation

"Heritage interpretation is an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by firsthand experience,and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information."

  • Freeman Tilden for the US National Park Service

"Any communication process designed to reveal meanings and relationships of cultural and natural heritage to the public, through first-hand involvement with an object, artifact, landscape or site."

  • Interpretation Canada (see link below)

"Interpretation is a mission-based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the meanings inherent in the resource."

  • The National Association for Interpretation (see link below)
  • The Definitions Project (consortium of over two dozen federal and non-profit organizations in the United States- see link below)*

"Interpretation enriches our lives through engaging emotions, enhancing experiences and deepening understanding of people, places, events and objects from past and present."

  • The Association for Heritage Interpretation (see link below)

"Interpretation is the process of communicating messages and stories about our cultural and natural heritage, providing the audience with inspiration and a wider understanding of our environment. Or quite simply, interpretation is about telling stories."

  • Scottish Interpretation Network (see link below)

"Interpretation refers to the full range of potential activities intended to heighten public awareness and enhance understanding of cultural heritage site. These can include print and electronic publications, public lectures, on-site and directly related off-site installations, educational programs, community activities, and ongoing research, training, and evaluation of the interpretation process itself."

  • ICOMOS "Ename" Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites 2008 (see links below)

Read more about this topic:  Heritage Interpretation

Famous quotes containing the words definitions of, definitions and/or heritage:

    What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty.
    —G.C. (Georg Christoph)

    Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, and as such is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds?
    There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable.
    Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)

    Flowers ... that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children—honoured as the jewellery of God only by them—when suddenly the voice of Christianity, counter-signing the voice of infancy, raised them to a grandeur transcending the Hebrew throne, although founded by God himself, and pronounced Solomon in all his glory not to be arrayed like one of these.
    Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859)