The Big Pit won the 2005 Gulbenkian Prize for its interpretation of the history of the Welsh coalmining industry and the life and work of the miners and their families. As well as tours of underground workings led by former miners, the site offers visitors a unique and very real experience.
The key to the success of the underground tour is that the story is an emotive one told by individuals who talk about what they once did for a living. It offers first-person interpretation in a real location, giving visitors a glimpse of the dark, claustrophobic and sometimes terrifying underground world from which the fuel that first created the modern world came.
These are real horny-handed sons of toil, talking with first-hand knowledge about their strategies for survival in the cruel world of work. The new galleries are more traditional, but every word on the panels, screens and audio tracks was scripted or approved by the ex-miners who are part of the management and curatorial team, and by the education officer, who grew up in the town.
Contrast this with a site such as Plimoth Plantation in New England, US. There, great pains have also been taken to make sure that everything looks authentic, from the buildings, to the plants in the gardens, to the food served on the tables. It is brilliantly done, but it is all false. But so what, if the visitors get a good idea of life in the late 16th century?
I believe it matters because there is a fundamental difference between doing something well and doing it truthfully. All sorts of techniques can be used to tell museum stories well - video and interactives, as well as costumed interpreters - but ideally, telling the truth calls for two-way interaction with a practitioner.
The truth, of course, is infinitely subjective, but you will hear from a Big Pit miner what he truly believes, rather than the scripted and rehearsed inventions of a period interpreter.
And what about differences within a single site? At the multi-period, open-air museum at St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff, the most popular exhibits are the re-erected buildings from the 20th century.
In the presence of these exhibits, people become their own interpreters, with grandparents explaining objects, processes, and even their thoughts to their grandchildren. Engagement with these exhibits is much more profound than with re-erected buildings from, say, the 17th century, which are passed by with little understanding, unlike the craftsmen working on those buildings, who are quizzed avidly.
Recreating and interpreting the past is fraught with difficulties. As an ex-archaeologist, I know that much of what we presume or deduce
about the past is actually guesswork - if in doubt, we always ascribe a 'ritual' purpose to an object.
As a result, archaeological museums often offer a spurious accuracy and dignify and sanctify assumptions.If something is dead or meaningless to most, how can we make it relevant?
The answer is simple, if potentially costly. The best interpretation is through face-to-face human interaction, and if we cannot have the creator of an object present then we should have the next best thing, the expert, whether curator or conservator.
Our museums are full of shy, self-effacing people in rooms off our darkest corridors, but when they talk about objects in their care or their latest research, they become animated and they shine. The Liverpool Conservation Centre and the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum build on this, as do audio tours such as the Victoria and Albert Museum's new Podcast.
There is already a declared shift to people-based interpretation in many institutions, and a welcome recognition that staff are as important as collections and that lay users are often more interested in the staff as people than in objects. It is the interaction of experts with their subjects that provides the ideal form of interpretation.
At the Museums Association conference, Lisa Jardine, the professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London, reminded us that it is visitors who shape their experience, not anyone else. She also said that museum objects must leave room for the visitor's point of view.
So is the route to interpretation-heaven found in the process and its practitioners as much as in the subject - in engaging the public, since they can relate to people, but only rarely to the object? I think it is.
This brings us back to the Big Pit. In 15 to 20 years there will be no more ex-miners. But by then we will have hologrammic miners. I can see them now ...
Eurwyn Wiliam is the director of collections and research and the deputy director general of Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. He was the director responsible for redeveloping the Big Pit at Blaenafon and creating the recently opened National Waterfront Museum in Swansea
The key to the success of the underground tour is that the story is an emotive one told by individuals who talk about what they once did for a living. It offers first-person interpretation in a real location, giving visitors a glimpse of the dark, claustrophobic and sometimes terrifying underground world from which the fuel that first created the modern world came.
These are real horny-handed sons of toil, talking with first-hand knowledge about their strategies for survival in the cruel world of work. The new galleries are more traditional, but every word on the panels, screens and audio tracks was scripted or approved by the ex-miners who are part of the management and curatorial team, and by the education officer, who grew up in the town.
Contrast this with a site such as Plimoth Plantation in New England, US. There, great pains have also been taken to make sure that everything looks authentic, from the buildings, to the plants in the gardens, to the food served on the tables. It is brilliantly done, but it is all false. But so what, if the visitors get a good idea of life in the late 16th century?
I believe it matters because there is a fundamental difference between doing something well and doing it truthfully. All sorts of techniques can be used to tell museum stories well - video and interactives, as well as costumed interpreters - but ideally, telling the truth calls for two-way interaction with a practitioner.
The truth, of course, is infinitely subjective, but you will hear from a Big Pit miner what he truly believes, rather than the scripted and rehearsed inventions of a period interpreter.
And what about differences within a single site? At the multi-period, open-air museum at St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff, the most popular exhibits are the re-erected buildings from the 20th century.
In the presence of these exhibits, people become their own interpreters, with grandparents explaining objects, processes, and even their thoughts to their grandchildren. Engagement with these exhibits is much more profound than with re-erected buildings from, say, the 17th century, which are passed by with little understanding, unlike the craftsmen working on those buildings, who are quizzed avidly.
Recreating and interpreting the past is fraught with difficulties. As an ex-archaeologist, I know that much of what we presume or deduce
about the past is actually guesswork - if in doubt, we always ascribe a 'ritual' purpose to an object.
As a result, archaeological museums often offer a spurious accuracy and dignify and sanctify assumptions.If something is dead or meaningless to most, how can we make it relevant?
The answer is simple, if potentially costly. The best interpretation is through face-to-face human interaction, and if we cannot have the creator of an object present then we should have the next best thing, the expert, whether curator or conservator.
Our museums are full of shy, self-effacing people in rooms off our darkest corridors, but when they talk about objects in their care or their latest research, they become animated and they shine. The Liverpool Conservation Centre and the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum build on this, as do audio tours such as the Victoria and Albert Museum's new Podcast.
There is already a declared shift to people-based interpretation in many institutions, and a welcome recognition that staff are as important as collections and that lay users are often more interested in the staff as people than in objects. It is the interaction of experts with their subjects that provides the ideal form of interpretation.
At the Museums Association conference, Lisa Jardine, the professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London, reminded us that it is visitors who shape their experience, not anyone else. She also said that museum objects must leave room for the visitor's point of view.
So is the route to interpretation-heaven found in the process and its practitioners as much as in the subject - in engaging the public, since they can relate to people, but only rarely to the object? I think it is.
This brings us back to the Big Pit. In 15 to 20 years there will be no more ex-miners. But by then we will have hologrammic miners. I can see them now ...
Eurwyn Wiliam is the director of collections and research and the deputy director general of Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. He was the director responsible for redeveloping the Big Pit at Blaenafon and creating the recently opened National Waterfront Museum in Swansea
