Natural heritage interpretation

Objective

Foster the use of local stories and arts as a vehicle for natural heritage interpretation

Impact

Natural Heritage sites have embedded artists creating new forms of narrative building and supporting visitor experience thus supporting audience building

Summary

The interpretation program will be led by the University of Bucharest (Cristina Toma is the Geological Heritage Interpretation coordinator of Interpret Europe) as the Hateg Geopark operator and Interpret Europe, as main knowledge centre for interpretation in Europe. The work will be done in four locations parallelly (beside HATEG Geopark in Romania in Hungary at the Balaton Felvidék Nemzetipark, as part of Veszprém 2023 long-term vision, Parque Natural da Ria Formosa in Portugal via Centro Ciencia Viva do Algrave and in Kemeri National Park in Latvia via the Nature Conservation Agency, all APs of the project) as our natural heritage hosting sites and pilot project incubators. The artists are mostly working separately, but they meet twice a year in person at the festival and during the retreat beside having a strong on-line connection, sharing their experiences.

The first year will focus on local artists (1-1/site, selected by the WP leader together with the involved sites and partners) creating around the yearly topic of AIR a unique, site-specific interpretation and also becoming the artists in residency for four years in the heritage site, as an artistic interpreter of the local environment. During second and third year the local artists are hosting 2-2 international artists each year via an open call, creating interpretation in a more international form, understandable for international guests. The themes are SOIL and WATER, following the yearly topic of the project, creating specific narratives for the wider public, helping them to understand the relevance of soil and water in the natural life of the parks. At the end of the third year, after finishing all together 12 narratives in the four sites, the WP leaders are hosting the Interpret Europe conference. This year edition – in cooperation with the Climate Heritage Network, as the main stakeholder group in the topic – will especially focus on the relationship between nature and interpretation. The conference usually hosts over 200 guests, in 2025 in Faro. The last year is about Ecosystem and we also emphasize the importance of connections between ecosystems, locations all over Europe. The four artists in residency (local artists) are visiting each of the site, focusing on one narrative, which is linking all of them and also creating an over-arching interpretation for local visitors at any of the locations. An artistic work, unique to the project, but still embedding all the involved heritage sites. At the end of the four years, the four sites, as a new initiative aim to establish the ‘Art friendly natural heritage network’ with methodology provided for other sites how to collaborate with artists for new narratives, reaching out to new visitors and fostering the understanding of the local nature. The network will have a manifest, as an expectation of attitude towards artists working in natural heritage interpretation.

Partners working on the project

University of Bucharest – Hateg UNESCO Geopark (RO)