Jon Kohl’s Interpretive Theme Writer’s Field Guide, now in its second edition, is not just a book explaining why interpretation should be thematic. Subtitled, How to craft strong themes from big idea to presentation, it tackles a more practical question: How do we actually craft and deploy a strong interpretive theme?

Designed as a field guide rather than a theoretical text though it still offers extensive references from the interpretation and writing craft literatures, it combines concise explanations with exercises, worksheets, famous writing quotes, examples and critiques of real-world themes. It also features contributions from practitioners worldwide in the ‘Voices from the Field’ sections. You can find essays by IE members Thorsten Ludwig, Angela Pfenniger and Michael Hamish Glen.

For members of Interpret Europe, the timing is telling. Our professional conversations have shifted in recent years toward narratives, participation and co-creation, a shift explored at length during our online symposium in February this year on the role of narratives in 21st century heritage interpretation, which asked how narratives shape meaning, dialogue and responsibility, and why working with them has become a central task for interpretation today. 

Kohl’s book arrives in the middle of that reflection, not outside it. He advocates that narratives do not exist without a theme structure, but that both can be the starting point for storytelling. Kohl embraces participatory approaches; in fact, he argues for ‘theme teams’ and community-based interpretive frameworks to help develop the ‘Big Idea’. But he insists participation does not replace professional expertise, and that a smaller professional group or individual still needs to shape the words that carry a shared idea. Whether a theme ever truly left the centre of planning, or only its authorship became contested, is itself part of the debate this book reopens.

One of its most valuable ideas is the distinction between primary and secondary audiences: a theme should first inspire those who create it, before being adapted for different kinds of visitors. It is a convincing defence of the interpretive planner’s role, not someone who imposes meaning, but someone who facilitates dialogue to identify a compelling ‘Big Idea’ and then refines it into a theme sentence. The book is process-driven and this idea was already in the first edition. 

What the second edition genuinely adds are two new chapters: one on deriving presentation structures from themes, another on developmental psychology, a reminder that interpreters grow and change too which affects both the kinds of themes that they write and the kinds of themes different audiences can relate to.

The chapter on artificial intelligence (AI) deserves attention for its balance. Kohl treats AI as neither threat nor miracle, but as a tool that still demands critical professional judgement. 

The question resonates well beyond this book: it ran through this year’s Interpret Europe trainers’ summer school, where Michal Medek facilitated an exchange ranging from skepticism to cautious optimism, alongside real ethical and sustainability concerns. Kohl has also conducted a separate study on the use of AI in interpretive theme writing, which will be the subject of a webinar on 13 October 2026.

Readers will not agree with every argument here, nor should they. Perhaps the book’s greatest contribution is that it keeps a debate alive rather than closing it, pushing us to keep refining both our thinking and our tools.

The book is available from the US National Association for Interpretation (NAI) and Bloomsbury Academic.

Vanessa Vaio is an IE certified interpretive planner and trainer and is IE’s Country Coordinator Italy. She has worked in heritage interpretation for more than 30 years, supporting museums, protected areas and UNESCO World Heritage sites across Europe. She can be contacted at: vanessa.vaio@interpret-europe.net. 

Have you ever visited a place that stayed with you long after you had left? Not simply because it was beautiful. Not simply because it was old or picturesque. But because you felt that something invisible was still there, perhaps a memory, an idea, a conversation that had never really ended.

In Sykia, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, Greece, there is a house that invites precisely this kind of encounter. Hidden among the pine trees of Pefkias forest, beside the Corinthian Gulf, stands the villa of the Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos and his wife, Eva Palmer. Completed in 1916, the villa is one of the distinctive literary and cultural landmarks of the area. Its architecture brings together references from different layers of the Greek past, including classical, Byzantine and Ionian/Venetian influences. Yet the building itself is not the most interesting story. The first thing an interpretive visitor encounters is not the villa. It is the landscape.

Pefkias is a coastal pine forest where the trees grow just beside the Corinthian Gulf, creating a striking meeting of land and sea, enclosure and openness. The villa stands within this landscape, and its setting is essential to understanding the atmosphere in which Sikelianos and Palmer lived and created.

This immediately raises a simple question: Why there?

Instead of beginning with dates and architectural details, the question invites us to look: the pine trees, the sea, the light, the sounds. So, the landscape becomes part of the story.

For Sikelianos, nature was not merely scenery. His relationship with the natural world was deeply connected with his artistic and philosophical outlook. The house, therefore, becomes more than a residence; it becomes part of a particular environment of thought and creativity.

Then we can look at the building itself. Its architectural language is equally layered. Classical references coexist with Byzantine elements and influences from the Ionian and Venetian traditions. Rather than belonging entirely to one historical period, the villa brings different cultural layers into conversation. In a sense, the house is already expressing an idea that was central to Sikelianos and Palmer: that the Greek past could be revisited, reimagined and brought into dialogue with the present.

Furthermore, the villa became a meeting place for people connected with the intellectual and artistic life of the period. Historical sources associate Sykia and the villa with famous poets, including Nikos Kazantzakis, Kostis Palamas and Kostas Karyotakis, among others.

It would be easy to turn these names into a list of famous visitors, but a list of names does not necessarily create an interpretive experience. So instead, imagine them as voices. A poet. A novelist. An artist. A composer.

Different personalities, different ideas, different visions of Greece, sharing a physical and intellectual space. What might they have discussed? What did they disagree about? What ideas were born from these encounters? And, perhaps the most important question, What would you have asked them if you had been there?

This question changes the visitor’s role. We are no longer simply looking at a historic house or receiving information about the people who lived there. We are imagining their voices and becoming participants in a conversation that began long ago.

This is what makes the villa particularly interesting as a place of heritage interpretation, a place where literature could meet music, ancient Greece could meet modern artistic experimentation, nature could become a source of inspiration, personal relationships could develop into cultural projects. 

The relationship between Sikelianos and Eva Palmer is especially important in this respect. Palmer was not simply the poet’s wife. An American by birth and deeply engaged with Greek culture, music, theatre and traditional arts, she was an artist and cultural figure in her own right. The Delphic vision that emerged from the world of Sikelianos and Palmer eventually took form in the Delphic Festivals of 1927 and 1930.

Therefore, we do not simply interpret what survives. We interpret what connects the surviving place with questions that still matter. 

Today, the villa exists in a very different context from the world of Sikelianos and Palmer. Its surroundings and use have changed, and the people who filled the house with conversation are long gone. Yet the place can still provoke questions.

Standing among the pines, looking towards the house and the sea, we can imagine the conversations that once took place here and, for a moment, create a new one. That is where interpretation can begin. Not with just an instruction to admire a historic building, but with an invitation to enter into a relationship with it. A heritage place does not necessarily have to give us every answer. Sometimes it gives us better questions.

How can the past become a source for creating something new? How can encounters among people shape cultural ideas? What happens when different perspectives meet in the same place? And finally, What conversations deserve to continue today?

Perhaps this is what makes the Villa of Angelos Sikelianos more than a historic residence. Its walls preserve a past. Its landscape preserves traces of a particular way of life. But its greatest potential may lie in the questions it can still inspire. Because heritage is not only what survives… It is what continues to speak!

There is also a more personal reason why this place continues to speak to me. I spent my childhood summers in Sykia, growing up with memories of Pefkias — its pine trees, the sea, the paths through the forest, and the quiet presence of this particular house. Long before I approached it as a heritage site, I knew it simply as part of the landscape of my childhood. Perhaps this is why, when I return to the villa today, I find myself thinking not only about the people who lived there a century ago, but also about the way places become part of our own stories. A landscape can hold memories that are deeply personal, while at the same time carrying memories that belong to a much wider cultural past. The two can meet in the same place. And perhaps this is where my own encounter with the villa begins.

Georgia Pyriovolis is an English teacher, certified tour leader and mountain guide, as well as a pioneer of Forest Bathing practice in Greece, recognising the profound link that nature plays in cultivating health and wellness. She facilitates nature-based experiences that foster reflection, dialogue and meaningful connection with place. She can be contacted at: gpyriov@gmail.com.

Do you think that living in the countryside is quiet? What would London be without the melodious sound of Big Ben? What would Mediterranean summers be without the chorus of cicadas?

In heritage interpretation, we often talk about multisensory experiences: smell, taste, touch – and, of course, sound. Sound can be particularly powerful. Music has always played an important role in intangible cultural heritage, and today technology gives us new ways to bring sounds, songs and stories into heritage experiences. Folklore songs, for example, can be reproduced during a tour, or incorporated into living heritage experiences, adding another layer to the visitor’s sensory journey.

But recently, I encountered a type of sound that made me think differently about what we consider heritage. The sounds we don’t notice. I often remember someone saying to me, “Wow, you can still hear hawks around your house!” For me, this was almost surprising. Not because I couldn’t hear them, but because I had never really thought about them.

In cities, we often talk about urban white noise. We become accustomed to it and eventually stop consciously noticing it. The same can happen in nature. Depending on where we live, the sounds of birds, bees, insects, sheep and goat bells, cats, rustling leaves and the wind can become part of our everyday acoustic environment. They are so familiar that we stop listening to them.

Yet these sounds can also be references to place. They tell us where we are, who inhabits this place. They can evoke memories, seasons, landscapes and ways of life. And, just like smells or tastes, they can carry cultural meaning.

This question became particularly relevant to me during a recent project on Andros Island in Greece, where we developed two interpretive walks exploring the heritage of the lemon. As part of the project, a large library of soundscapes was created.

At first glance, these might seem like ordinary recordings. But perhaps that is exactly the point. How should heritage interpreters deal with sounds that are so familiar that we hardly notice them? How can we transform an everyday sound into an element of interpretation? And, more importantly, how can we use sound to make visitors listen differently?

Digital interpretation gives us some exciting possibilities. A sound does not necessarily have to be the main attraction. It can work subtly in the background, create an atmosphere, accompany a story, or become the story itself.

For example, in an audio tour or digital interpretive app, we could use familiar sounds in several ways:

• A sound carpet – A natural soundscape playing quietly underneath the interpretive guide’s narration, creating a stronger sense of place.
• A phenomenon to be interpreted – Instead of simply using a bird sound as background, why not invite visitors to stop and listen? And consider what its presence tells us about the landscape?
• An interactive sound game – Visitors could be challenged to identify sounds around them, match recordings with places, animals or elements of the landscape, or even distinguish between sounds that belong to different places or seasons.

These approaches turn listening from something passive into something active.

Learning to listen again: Perhaps the most interesting opportunity is not to introduce visitors to sounds they have never heard before. Perhaps it is to make them notice sounds they have heard all their life. And once we start listening, the landscape changes. We begin to realise that sound is not simply an accompaniment to a heritage experience. It can be a way of understanding place. 

So perhaps the question for heritage interpreters is not simply: What can visitors see here? But also, What can visitors hear? And, What have they stopped noticing?

Because there is no silence in nature. We just need to learn how to listen.

Penelope Gkini works as an interpretive guide and mountain leader. She is an Interpret Europe certified interpretive trainer. You can contact her at: porizocrete@gmail.com.

For six heritage destinations across Southern Africa, this means going beyond presenting facts to visitors. It means asking deeper questions: 

What should visitors understand? 

Whose voices should they hear? 

How can communities participate? 

And how can stories contribute to conservation, education and sustainable tourism?

These questions were at the centre of a regional training on interpretation and storytelling held from 27 to 31 July 2026 at Matobo Hills, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which brought together participants from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. 

Supported by the European Union and implemented by UNESCO through the Africa–Europe Partnerships for Culture: Promoting Culture and Heritage-based Sustainable Tourism in Southern Africa project, the training was delivered in collaboration with Interpret Europe and technical support from the African World Heritage Fund.

Moving from planning to visitor experience

The training marked an important step in the project’s journey from planning towards implementation. Across the six participating sites, Tsodilo Hills World Heirtage Site, Matsanjeni North, Morija Cultural Precinct, Twyfelfontein / Ui-//aes World Heritage Site, ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site and Matobo Hills World Heritage Sites, work is underway to strengthen how heritage is managed, interpreted and connected to sustainable tourism development.

Interpretation is a critical part of this process. Rather than producing interpretation frameworks that remain as planning documents, the project aims to translate them into experiences that visitors can see, hear and participate in, including guided experiences, heritage trails, exhibitions, community storytelling and appropriate digital interpretation.

Through the Interpret Europe Certified Interpretive Planner (CIP) training course, participants explored practical methods for identifying the significance of heritage, understanding different audiences, developing meaningful themes and connecting tangible places with the stories, memories and values associated with them.

The learning extended beyond the training room, with practical exercises encouraging participants to consider how interpretive principles can be applied in real heritage settings.

The training challenged us to think beyond simply giving visitors information about our sites. Good interpretation is about creating a connection, helping visitors understand why a place matters, whose stories it carries and what they should take away from the experience. 

Corera Links, Socio-Economic Transformation Officer – ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site, South Africa. 

Putting people and multiple voices at the centre

At the heart of effective interpretation is people. Heritage sites hold different histories, memories, meanings and perspectives. The objective is, therefore, not to develop one standard story across the six destinations, but to equip each site team to develop an interpretation framework grounded in its own heritage values, communities and visitor context.

Community participation will be particularly important as this work moves forward. Local communities are not only beneficiaries of heritage tourism. They are knowledge holders, custodians and storytellers whose perspectives can help shape how places are understood and presented.

Bringing these voices into interpretation can also create opportunities for local guides, creatives, cultural practitioners, entrepreneurs, women and young people to participate more meaningfully in the visitor economy.

As local guides, we are not only showing visitors places; we are sharing stories that come from our communities and our lived experiences. It is important that local people are involved in deciding how those stories are told, so that visitors hear the voices of the people connected to the heritage. 

Sipho Khoza, Local Community Guide – Matsanjeni North, Eswatini

This reflects a broader shift towards interpretation that is inclusive and multivocal, recognising that heritage can carry different meanings for different people and that these perspectives are part of what makes a place significant.

Learning by doing

The training was designed not simply to introduce interpretation theory, but to prepare participants for the work that follows.

Through facilitated sessions, group exercises, practical activities and reflection, participants considered how interpretation can provoke curiosity, encourage participation, create deeper meaning and ultimately strengthen stewardship of heritage.

One question captured this approach throughout the training: What story should every visitor remember after leaving your heritage site?

The question moves interpretation beyond signs, information panels and guided commentary. It asks site teams to think about the lasting connection between the visitor and the place, and what understanding that comes from emotion or curiosity a visitor should carry with them afterwards.

Interpretation is not simply about providing more information. It is about creating meaningful connections between people and heritage. When visitors are encouraged to think, participate and discover meaning for themselves, interpretation can contribute to a deeper appreciation of a place and its values.

Michal Medek, Interpret Europe trainer

From training to site-level action

The conclusion of the regional training is, therefore, a beginning rather than an end. Participants will take the knowledge and methods developed during the programme back to their respective sites, where the next stage will involve working with site teams, communities and other stakeholders to develop site-specific interpretation and storytelling frameworks.

These frameworks will help identify the stories each site wants to communicate, the audiences it seeks to reach, whose perspectives need to be represented, and the most appropriate ways of turning those narratives into visitor experiences.

This site-level process is particularly important because the six destinations are very different. Tsodilo Hills WHS, Matsanjeni North, Morija Cultural Precinct, Twyfelfontein / Ui-//aes WHS ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape WHS and Matobo Hills WHS each have distinct histories, landscapes, communities, heritage values and tourism contexts.

Their interpretation should reflect those differences.

This training is not an end in itself. What matters now is how the learning is taken back to each of the six sites and translated into interpretation and storytelling frameworks developed with communities and other stakeholders. Ultimately, we want to see those frameworks move from paper into real visitor experiences that strengthen people’s connection with heritage while creating opportunities for communities. 

Rodney Bunhiko, Project Coordinator – UNESCO

Turning stories into sustainable futures

The ambition extends beyond improving how stories are told. Strong interpretation can contribute to more meaningful visitor experiences, diversified tourism products, opportunities for local livelihoods and greater understanding of why heritage needs to be protected.

For the Africa–Europe Partnerships for Culture project, this connects interpretation directly to the wider objective of developing sustainable culture and heritage-based tourism across Southern Africa.

The measure of success will, therefore, not be the completion of the training itself, or even the production of six interpretation frameworks. It will be seen in what happens afterwards: whether guides are better equipped to engage visitors; whether communities have stronger voices in how their heritage is presented; whether new experiences and opportunities emerge around heritage; and whether visitors leave with a deeper understanding of the places and people they have encountered.

The training provided the participating site teams with a common foundation. The next step is to turn that learning into locally grounded interpretation frameworks and those frameworks into experiences that connect people with heritage. Because ultimately, the most powerful heritage stories are not simply the ones that are told. They are the ones people understand, feel connected to and carry with them long after they leave.

Rodney Bunhiko is a culture and heritage professional the Project Coordinator for the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA). He has coordinated significant cultural initiatives, including restoration and storytelling development projects at the Great Zimbabwe National Monument and regional heritage preservation programmes. 

Rodney can be contacted at: r.bunhiko@unesco.org 

The idea for Cats of Cres was created during an IE Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) course organised by the town of Cres in Croatia. The course included a lot of practical fieldwork, where each participant developed and explored their own interpretive ideas.

The IE trainers noticed something else: I seemed to know almost every cat in the old town by name. One of them asked me, “Why don’t you create a tour about the cats of Cres?” Something immediately clicked.

With their guidance, I developed the idea further, and Cats of Cres became my final course project. This summer, it also became a real interpretive walk in Cres.

But Cats of Cres is not really a tour about cats. The cats are our guides. They experience the town differently from us. They see details we often pass without noticing, hear things we do not hear, and disappear into narrow passages and hidden corners we rarely explore. During the walk, I invite participants to imagine seeing Cres through their eyes.

Instead of focusing on the town’s most obvious landmarks, we stop at small details that are always there, but that we rarely consider important. A fragment of old street paving tells us how people once moved through the town. A symbol on a façade introduces a noble family. Even the terrace of a café reveals a piece of the town’s history.

At the beginning of the walk, participants receive cat ears. It is a playful invitation to become cats themselves for a while: to slow down, observe, listen and look more carefully. Participation is an important part of the experience. We observe, exchange ideas and discover the stories together.

The real cats of Cres are an important part of the experience too. They are friendly, used to people and regularly spend time around the old town, so we often meet them during the walk. Guests also receive a few cat treats, which makes these encounters especially fun for children. They can offer the cats a treat, pet them and get to know some of their names and personalities. Some cats have owners and some do not, but they are all part of everyday life in the town. Of course, there is never a guarantee that a particular cat will appear – they are cats, after all.

My hope is that after the walk participants will continue looking differently – not only at Cres, but at other places they visit. Perhaps they will notice a small detail they would previously have passed by, or see a cat disappearing around a corner and wonder: What would that cat show me if I followed it?

I would love Cats of Cres to inspire interpreters elsewhere to find their own cats, small details and local stories. Every town has a different story to tell.

Dunja Sladić is a licensed tourist and hiking guide and heritage interpreter from Cres, Croatia. Through her tour agency, Cres Fun & More, she creates local experiences connecting visitors with the island’s heritage, traditions and everyday life. She can be contacted at: info@cres-fun.com. 

The Tourism Association of Vorpommern is working to develop our region as a place where people can experience nature deeply and responsibly. High‑quality visitor experience is a key part of this vision. In June, we had the opportunity to host an Interpret Europe Certified Interpretive Writer (CIW) course in the Hanseatic city of Greifswald – five intense days fully dedicated to interpretive writing. 

Nine participants from different professional backgrounds – guiding, nature conservation and tourism – came together with one shared goal: to create visitor texts that truly touch people and make them think. Under the guidance of our IE trainer, the course offered a well‑balanced mix of theory, reflection and hands‑on practice.

A central element was the development of an individual interpretive panel. Instead of simply informing, these panels are designed to speak directly to the reader. They invite emotional engagement and offer the reader new perspectives on a place, an object or a landscape. Step by step, participants transformed initial ideas into concise texts with a clear theme, meaningful links to the site and tangible relevance for visitors.

Greifswald provided the ideal open‑air classroom. After short inputs inside, we moved outside whenever possible – to the cathedral, the market square, the harbour, and the riuns of Eldena Abbey. Concepts were tested immediately on real locations, re‑worked, and then transferred back into the design of the panels. By the end of the week, we were all impressed by how diverse and creative the final results were, even though everyone had followed the same structured method.

Despite the intensive programme, there was plenty of time for exchange and networking. 

Discussions continued over coffee and during short walks through town; experiences from different regions and institutions were shared generously. This collegial atmosphere was one of the course’s great strengths and will, we are sure, continue in future cooperation.

For us as a Tourism Association, the CIW course is more than a training opportunity. It is part of a broader effort to professionalise our Nature Guide offers within the project ‘Gemeinsam Mee(h)r Natur in Vorpommern wagen‘ (Daring more nature together in Vorpommern), also known as Lebenslandschaft Vorpommern. By investing in interpretive writing skills, we want to ensure that new trails, guided tours and visitor infrastructure in our region do not just show beautiful places, but also help residents and guests understand why these landscapes matter – for biodiversity, for local livelihoods and for a sustainable future.

We warmly thank all participants for their openness and commitment, and we wish them every success as they apply their new skills in daily practice. Our sincere thanks also go to Interpret Europe for the professional facilitation and inspiring guidance throughout the week.

Annika Lenz works as project manager at the Tourism Association of Vorpommern, where she brings three years‘ experience to the role. Her main interest is in sustainable tourism. Annika can be contacted at: lenz@vorpommern.de. 

In the last issue of the Interpret Europe newsletter, we wrote an extensive article about IE’s involvement in an Erasmus+ project called Liberation Route, Europe’s Youth Ambassadors Network – all about creating the storytellers of the future to deal with difficult or sensitive heritage.

Now we’re bringing a short update about an opportunity to get involved. If you are no longer youthful, please help to spread the word and share this news with any colleagues who have contacts with youth organisations.

The first cycle of our online training sessions starts in November. The exact dates are 26 November, 3 December, and 10 December 2026, from 17.00 to 19.00 CET. 

The three sessions form a cycle, and participants should attend all three. 

Participation is free. Details of how to apply can be found here: https://www.lre-youth.eu/sign-up-online-training-series/

The sessions encourage participation, (self)reflection, research of your own environment, observation of the patterns that create different narratives, and creating digital stories. We will explore what war stories mean today, how to tell them effectively and how they can strengthen engagement, leadership and citizenship. The training will introduce techniques for sharing the stories and fostering understanding. The value-based heritage interpretation theory is an underlying pillar of these sessions. 

If you can’t make it this time, stay tuned. We will organise at least two more cycles. This cycle is reserved for young adults, people over 18. However, one of the next cycles could be for high school students. We would love to hear from you. Would you (or someone you know) like to join as a whole class? Is English a problem for you or your students? We may also be able to organise them in different languages and for particular age groups. 

Over the next two years, the project will build a European network of storytellers and interpreters for difficult-heritage, centred on World War 2. ​Together, we will create new tales that connect heritage with contemporary democratic values – and leave a digital footprint for the future. ​

More information:

LRE Youth Ambassadors website: https://www.lre-youth.eu/ 

LRE Youth Ambassadors Network application form: https://www.lre-youth.eu/sign-up-youth-ambassadors/ 

LRE Youth Ambassadors on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lre_youth/ 

Iva Silla and Samia Zitouni are Interpret Europe certified interpretive trainers from Croatia. They are working with experts from Studio Globo to develop a set of interactive and reflective online sessions for the LRE Youth Ambassadors project. Contact Iva at iva@questoftales.com, and Samia at samiaztn@gmail.com.

Following a motion adopted at the IE General Assembly on 25 May 2026, a working group has been established to analyse the opportunities that the EU-funded ‘HI-People’ network grant offers to strengthen IE’s ongoing work. More specifically, this involves:

• Realigning tasks supported by the network grant with IE’s strategic or shorter-term priorities 
• Integrating network grant tasks to better support regular IE activities that might also sustain those network grant tasks after the EU grant ends 
• Creating opportunities where possible to partially compensate the work of managing, subject and country coordinators  

The network grant is not a typical EU project. Instead, it is designed to support and strengthen IE’s structure and activities.

What does that mean, exactly? Well, within HI-People there are many new and existing work package tasks that the working group must consider.

For each work package, the working group examines each of the deliverables and agrees on ways to relate them closely to existing IE structures and activities. Here are two examples:

Firstly, IE must produce a toolkit that heritage organisations may use to measure how effective their interpretive efforts are at fostering visitor or audience awareness and even action about sustainability. 

The working group discussed the deliverable and identified the opportunity for the toolkit to focus on the values that put people’s well-being and the interests of the wider world first. This would help heritage organisations think about how their work can contribute to changing mindsets through value-based heritage experiences that underpin sustainability. The toolkit will be developed in consultation with IE members and other heritage interpretation stakeholders.

Secondly, IE must run a new cycle of Learning Landscapes. The working group agreed that any new cycle should build on lessons learned from the first UNESCO-backed initiative. IE will, therefore, develop a revised training curriculum for the new cycle with a stronger focus on participation and facilitation for people with experience in heritage interpretation. 

The working group concluded that integrating this new training material into our existing training and certification programme was a priority, so that our training sector benefits from developing and testing concepts for the practical application of the participatory and co-creative methods to meaning making as part of the new paradigm. This helps maximise the value of the new training material, extending its benefits beyond the requirements of the HI-People network grant.  

The network grant is, therefore, an opportunity that we should make the most of for IE, using it to support and strengthen what we already do and bring real benefits to our members and heritage stakeholders.  

At the time of writing, the working group currently comprises Managing Directors Helena Vičič and Gerald Wagenhofer, Valya Stergioti, Thorsten Ludwig, HI-People Project Manager and Project Assistant, Sandy Colvine and Ilaria Scarmagnan. So far, the group has met five times between July and September to discuss how to more closely align different tasks to IE’s needs. 

Finally, the General Assembly also tasked the working group with ensuring transparency. The group has drafted a set of rules of procedure and there will also be a dedicated space in our online members’ area to share information about the original HI-People network grant proposals, the working group proposals for better synergies, and records of its meetings. 

The intention is to enable members to get involved whether this is following progress, sharing ideas, or joining the working group’s efforts.

Alexander (Sandy) Colvine is IE’s Project Manager for the HI-People network grant. He can be contacted at: alexander.colvine@interpret-europe.net.

The Empaths project is in its final phase, piloting an experimental training programme on participatory heritage interpretation. This began in June with three online training sessions for heritage professionals based in Greece, Italy and Austria/Slovenia on the principles of participatory heritage interpretation. Sandy Colvine delivered the online training for IE to its piloting partner, UNESCO Global Geopark Karawanken/Karavanke, which straddles part of the border between Austria and Slovenia.

The online training is complemented by on-site ‘community labs’ in the three pilot countries. These give heritage professionals the opportunity to experience participatory and facilitation techniques with local community members. 

This all sounds very logical and straightforward, but it is not! Heritage interpretation and participatory practices are two big concepts. Together, they require heritage professionals to change their mindset and way of working by loosening traditional controls over the meaning-making process.

Firstly, inviting other voices into the conversation can obviously bring unforeseen opinions and ideas, with unexpected consequences. This can be unsettling for those heritage professionals who are used to setting the agenda and directing activities towards intended objectives. These concerns came through very clearly when Empaths partners consulted experienced interpretive planning consultants last year.

Secondly, six online training sessions and a five-day community lab are not enough to make anyone fully comfortable with heritage interpretation and participatory practices. Similarly, completing a five-day IE Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) course does not instantly make you an accomplished interpreter. It is the start of a learning journey.

The community labs were, therefore, intended as ‘real-life experiments’, partly based on a design thinking process. This provided a roadmap: from empathising by understanding each other and what people value, to defining challenges, exploring deeper meanings, developing themes and narratives, and considering formats for interpretive experiences. The process ended by reflecting on what participants had learned and what had changed as a result.

Yet, no planned outcome can be guaranteed, and each step may take more or less time than expected. The aim was, therefore, to facilitate a ‘big conversation’ among participants, help them experience the power of working together and, where possible, reach a shared understanding of ideas for interpretive services that could promote shared heritage narratives. 

This was exactly the experience of the community lab in UNESCO Global Geopark Karawanken/Karavanke, run by Claudia Grünberg on behalf of IE. The lab involved Geopark staff, heritage professionals and representatives of local community institutions from both sides of the border. It was initially prepared around the topic of how Austrian and Slovenian cross-border communities relate to the heritage managed by the Geopark in which they live. 

Lesson one: Sometimes the starting point gets in the way.

A rookie mistake, perhaps, but the topic proved to be an obstacle rather than a catalyst for exchange because it framed the conversation and the actions that might follow too tightly. It did not fully match what participants felt was most important to them.

So, instead of moving on, the group prolonged the empathising stage. Participants talked at length about what their local heritage meant to them, and a topic emerged naturally from the conversation: the gap between the heritage narratives promoted by the Geopark and the interests of local people.

The catalyst emerged from the participants themselves, through Claudia’s careful facilitation.

Once this hurdle was cleared, the group’s thoughts quickly flowed towards what the Geopark meant to each person. They reviewed existing interpretive services and discussed how these could be improved to connect more closely with the meanings and values held by local people, while involving them in the process.

Lesson two: Practice changes things.

Once the group had identified a topic they could relate to, participants began experimenting with facilitation and participation techniques. They took turns facilitating parts of the discussion, drew quieter voices into the conversation, and worked together to develop ideas for future interpretive activities. At the beginning of the process they felt not at all prepared even with the theory learned from the online training.

The leap from classroom to field can be too big if the objectives of a community lab are too prescriptive. Participants may then have little sense of ownership and no grounds to facilitate exchange. So, it was a challenge for IE and the Geopark, as organisers, to keep the process ‘loose’ yet help people reach ideas for action together so they could see something tangible emerging from their efforts.

There were, for example, ideas about how the Geopark could involve people in future awareness events, plans for a large community event, and suggestions for reviewing interpretation in a visitor centre so that it relates more closely to local people. 

Lesson three: Failing to plan is planning to fail, but over-planning can fail too.

In our community lab experience, if the plan is too detailed and rigid, it may fail. However, the design thinking process did provide a necessary thread to focus comments, develop ideas and help participants identify the ingredients for interpretive experiences that could help the Geopark promote natural and cultural heritage in a way that local people can relate to.

In conclusion, the community lab proved to be a very intense but rewarding experience. The Geopark gained many insights from the community into its work and improvements it could make. It may also adopt the lab approach for a larger community event early next year.

At the start, participants were unsure about how to move from the theory of participation to facilitating it. In short, we, the organisers, tried to plan a participatory process, but our first plan got in the way. So, we changed it, allowing the participants more freedom to define the issue. That changed the dynamic and eventually led to concrete ideas for the Geopark. 

Once the participants helped define the issue themselves, they began to take more ownership of the discussion and to experiment with the techniques they had covered online.

For all participants, Geopark staff, heritage professionals and representatives of local community institutions from both sides of the border, the lab provided an opportunity to experience the power of working with people outside their usual circles of interaction. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the change in mindset and way of working needed for genuinely co-creative meaning-making.

The EMPATHS project is co-funded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme.

More details: https://empaths-project.eu

Alexander (Sandy) Colvine is IE’s Project Manager for the HI-People network grant. He can be contacted at: alexander.colvine@interpret-europe.net.

The work that heritage interpreters may be expected to do is growing broader and more complex. For example, in the past century it was usually left to them to come up with interpretations and ways to engage visitors. Today, interpretations of any given heritage are often publicly contested. To develop or revise interpretive offerings, heritage professionals may find themselves working with local communities, special stakeholders, political representatives, and a wider public. 

The core skills of the heritage interpreter, as taught in Interpret Europe’s certification courses, remain valid. But to stay on top of the ongoing expansion of their field, heritage interpreters need to grow their skill set. They also need to develop an adequate theoretical understanding of their professional practice in this century. I don’t mean theory for theory’s sake, or for scoring status points with academic snobs. I mean the kind of theory that helps you be good at what you do, just like a good hiking map makes it easier for you to navigate the terrain.

Between practical skills and theoretical understanding, developing the latter could turn out to be the greater challenge, given that we may still lack any adequate theory of heritage interpretation, for this century or the last. To provoke ideas and responses, in the spirit of brainstorming, let me make an easy fresh start based on a connective concept, specifically the concept of mental modelling. It captures the notion that we understand the world by creating models of it in our minds, including models of heritage phenomena.

A connective concept, as I understand the term, is a concept that connects an initially disparate set of concepts, theories, or conversations. One thing that a good connective concept for heritage interpretation would do is to help us make coherent sense of the growing professional vocabulary. We would be able to define most of our terms with reference to such a connective concept. This has the useful effect of making it quite obvious how our terms, concepts, and perhaps even existing theoretical approaches relate to each other.

As a small test, let us consider some terms highlighted by the Interpret Europe online symposium held in February 2026. The symposium reflected on the role of ‘narratives’ in current heritage interpretation practice. A number of other relevant terms were collected in the symposium materials and Thorsten Ludwig’s introductory talk. Below I define some of them with reference to the concept of mental modelling:

Frame. Mental model that acts as a mould for other mental models.

Interpretive theme. Mental model that an interpreter uses as a mould to shape the mental model of a given phenomenon; in other words, a kind of frame.

Narrative. A large frame [mental model that acts as a mould for other mental models]; also, specifically, a large-scale story [mental model that describes a process] that acts as a frame.

Story. Mental model that describes a process.

Brain script. Mental model of how to act in a given situation; in other words, a template story [mental model that describes a process].

Take a moment to let this test example sink in. When you have, I hope you can agree that the concept of mental modelling lends itself quite easily to defining at least some of the vocabulary of heritage interpretation. What is more, with mental models as a common denominator, connections immediately begin to appear between individual terms, binding them together in a crisscrossing web of meanings. This is a promising start for the development of a new working theory.

Where do we go from here? Staying with the concept of mental modelling, a first step to develop it for heritage interpretation could be to move beyond its focus on individual minds or people (i.e. ‘subjects’) and think about what it means to engage in intersubjective mental modelling. Because subjects need to communicate to do that, this step leads to a chance to integrate parts of existing conceptions of heritage interpretation that focus on communication. And so on.

Or do you think we should start from another connective concept? Or use an entirely different approach to understanding heritage interpretation and guiding what interpreters do? Let’s keep the discussion going and model this together.

[The full article, Heritage interpretation as mental modelling: A connective concept for an expanding vocabulary, is available in the proceedings of the Interpret Europe online symposium 2026. There you can also find Thorsten Ludwig’s introductory paper referred to above.]

Philipp P. Thapa is an ecologist, philosopher, and writer based in Germany. He can be contacted at philipp.thapa@elfenbeynturm.de.