Building A Sense of Place

November 11, 2021 by Taylor Studios in Design & Planning

When guiding tours through the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem or teaching students in a science school, you could almost always find me traveling through nature with an audience in tow as I told stories, dug through dirt, and highlighted the hidden values of the landscape. Nature was my exhibit, and it was my job to translate it into something the audience could understand and connect with.

Years later, I find myself in teaching in a field less often, despite this, my role has remained largely the same. The exhibits I help design tell stories, dig through all manners of topics, and highlight the value of the landscape, culture, and history that surrounds us. I may use exhibit
signs instead of my own vocal cords, but the design approach is the same. I need to connect the audience to the concept and connect that concept to an understandable story.

So how do I approach a project?

Establishing My Sense of Place
To start, I need to find a sense of place. I’ve done this several ways over the years. The most effective method I’ve found is to physically visit the space and immerse myself into the existing stories or narratives being told as a member of the audience I intend to write for. When I first moved to Yellowstone, I spent a solid month just exploring, researching, and
listening to the myriads of stories already being told.

I still use this process when starting a project. If there is a physical location, I want to go there and see it for myself. If there are stories already being told I want them told to me. Even if can’t go in person, I want to take the time to immerse myself in the history, culture, and
information the exhibit will engage with. I want to establish a clear sense of place.

Not only does this help me see things from the visitor’s
perspective, but it helps expand my curiosity and desire to learn more.

Wrestling the Firehose
When you start connecting history, people, and places, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information to sort through. But it needs to be sorted, and once I’ve found my sense of place, I need to begin researching the important information for my new program or exhibit. Still the firehose of related content can seem both intimidating and debilitating anytime I start exploring it.

I find it’s most helpful to start by exploring the burning questions that rise to the surface of visitor’s minds. When guiding, these were the questions visitors asked me a hundred times a day. They are the questions I find most people get tired of answering over and over again. Questions like this can help narrow down the immense amount of research and addressing them as part of the exhibit can save interpretive staff at least a couple headaches.

With these questions in mind, I consider what stories are already being told, who is telling the story, and are there related stories that haven’t been explored. This helps guide me towards choosing the right content. In some cases, like with wildlife safety in a wilderness setting, these topics need to remain present. In other cases, exploring new perspectives may provide
audiences with new insight.

Focusing on the existing stories or topics, unearthing the stories hidden by previous narratives, and answering the visitor’s burning questions allows me to turn the firehose of potential content into a more manageable garden hose.

Connecting the Audience
In 2019, courtesy of the interpretive team at Grand Teton National Park I was first introduced to the National Park Service’s ACE method of interpretation. A year later I found myself learning more about it while studying science communications for my graduate degree. ACE stands for Audience Centered Experience. It focuses on removing the interpretive guide from being the center of attention or “sage on the stage” as my fellow interpretive guides might say. Instead, the ACE method brings the audience onto the stage and provides a platform for them to share their experiences, thoughts, and emotions
while the interpreter serves to provide supporting information and guidance.

As an interpretive guide and as a science school teacher, I found myself drawn to the ACE method for its ability to connect audiences to the content I was sharing. Their input and experiences often provided new insight, questions, and engagement I had not encountered before. I still find it incredibly useful when I approach new exhibits too. By inserting the
audience’s thoughts and experience into our content, we can more effectively connect the tangible things on display with the intangible concepts we want to share with that audience.

In physical exhibit design, we often do this through interactive displays or elements that encourage the audience to share their experience or creativity. Audience centered writing can be more challenging and the results are often more subtle. Still, I find when I begin formatting my thoughts and my outline within the audience centered experience, my writing
becomes clearer, and it is easier to consider what the visitor really wants to learn about.

Conclusions
Building a sense of place, understanding the burning questions, and considering my writing from the experiences of the audience creates a foundation for my writing. These concepts allow me to begin establishing what I should research, what to highlight, and most importantly what will fit thematically within the exhibit we are designing.