Project Report for Unlocking Landscapes
The inclusive role of sensory histories of people and place
Humphry Repton directing gardeners from his bathchair, Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, 1816, p. 183. Credit: Biodiversity Heritage Library
This report, written with the Sensory Trust, summarises themes we have been exploring as part of this AHRC funded network. It foregrounds the potential for sensory history scholarship to disrupt and expand the types of stories shared about landscape; moving beyond dominant forms of landscape encounter and enabling a greater diversity of people to ‘be’ and belong in historic landscapes. This report is intended for anyone involved in the management and interpretation of such landscapes.
We argue that by moving away from prominent ocular-centric approaches, the interpretation of historical landscapes could be reconsidered by drawing on multisensory place stories; how and why the sounds, scents, textures and broader sensations of embodying the landscape may have changed through history, and how these experiences may have varied amongst different types of inhabitants (human or otherwise). The focus on ‘stories’ rather than ‘story’ is key as there are many, often overlapping narratives, which can speak to similarly diverse landscape visitors, makers and shapers.
Although the report calls for more attention to a range of landscape histories, we are not suggesting the answer lies solely in more written text and interpretation boards. Over-reliance on the written word can reinforce privileged experiences and ways of perceiving places, and limit experiential and embodied ways of sensing, knowing, imagining and understanding landscape that are just as important. Rather, we encourage a mediation of these landscape histories though innovative, artistic and embodied approaches that complement yet move beyond an intellectual understanding through the written word.
A marker with a hand on it representing touch.
Photo ©Sensory Trust