Performing the knowing archive: heritage performance and authenticity

Abstract

This article presents findings from the Performance, Learning and Heritage project at the University of Manchester 2005–2008. Using evidence from four case studies, it provides insight into the ways visitors to museums and heritage sites utilise their understandings of ‘the authentic’ in making sense of their encounters with performances of the past. Although authenticity is a contested and controversial concept, it remains a significant measure against which our respondents analyse and critique their encounters with ‘the past’. Beyond superficial analyses, however, it is noted that many respondents demonstrate more sensitive and nuanced reflections on the museum as a site of authenticity and authority, reflections aided by the very fictionality of the mode of interpretation.

Keywords:

• performance
• authenticity
• interpretation
• heritage

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, partner organisations, Steering Group and Advisory Board, as well as the contributions of all research participants. Special thanks to Anthony Jackson, Laurajane Smith and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Notes

1. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK (from 2005 to 2008).

2. The ‘we’ referred to here is the Performance, Learning and Heritage research team: Project Director Prof. Anthony Jackson, full time Research Associate Dr. Jenny Kidd and part time Administrator Ruth Daniel.

3. For further detail of methods used and case study sites see the PLH project report available at http://www.manchester.ac.uk/plh.

4. Much previous work in this area has concentrated solely on school audiences (including work at the University of Manchester, see for example Jackson et al. 2002.

5. More can be found about the research questions, aims and methodology at http://www.manchester.ac.uk/plh.

6. There were a number of ‘themes’ identified in the research data; Visitors and Audiences, Performance, Interactivity and Participation, Learning, and Heritage and Authenticity. This paper deals almost exclusively with the last of these themes.

7. The link between heritage and nation is both frequent and contested (see Bradburne 2000).

8. There has also been recognition of intangible forms of heritage in the shape of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage initiative. The UNESCO project recognises that many cultures have a range of practices that constitute ‘heritage’, and often different attitudes toward, and experiences of, material culture (including having it removed or destroyed). Intangible heritages, wherever they occur, are forms of signifying cultural practice, which are arguably also important to preserve in some way.

9. For more on authenticity see MacCannell (1976[1999]), Cohen (1988), Urry (1995), Selwyn (1996), Waitt (1999), Wang (1999), and Reisinger and Steiner (2006).

10. Each quotation has a code which relates to the case study (National Maritime Museum – CS1, Llancaiach Fawr Manor – CS2, Triangle Theatre Company at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum – CS3 or Manchester Museum – CS4), the type of participant (S – school pupil, I – independent visitor, F – focus group member), and the period in which the discussion took place (PP1 – on the day, PP2 – weeks following, PP3 – ten months later).

11. ‘… identifying some cultural expressions or artefacts as authentic, genuine, trustworthy, or legitimate simultaneously implies that other manifestations are fake, spurious, and even illegitimate’ (Bendix 1997, p. 9).

12. As Urry (1996) also demonstrates.

13. As Carlson (1996 [2004], p. 109) states, ‘Whatever the suspension of disbelief visitors bring to these encounters, they are obviously aware of their performative nature’. This does not preclude audience members from being able to actively and vigorously critique what they see.

14. The performance at Manchester Museum was commissioned as part of the Revealing Histories initiative to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in the UK. Thus, slavery and abolition were a primary focus.

15. Victor Turner’s concept of liminality is an important one in performance research (see Turner 1974 and on ritual behaviours, and ‘optation’ in Turner 1982).

16. Ames (2005, p. 45) states that ‘The dominance of objects in the work of museums also dominates the theoretical imaginations of those working in museums’.

17. See Henning (2006), for an overview of literature documenting a shift toward more subjective museum ‘experience’ as being a core orientation for the modern museum.

18. The museum as communicator is an aspiration identified by Eilean Hooper‐Greenhill (2005).

19. Here the reference differs as the source is a questionnaire (number 22 in the archive for this case study).

20. For more information, see Jackson and Kidd (2008).