If stones could talk, they would tell amazing stories. As a journalist covering Southern Italian heritage, I always used storytelling to raise awareness around neglected ancient sites. But it was only during my MA (Heritage Management, University of Kent in Athens) that I fully realised that stories are the pivots around which heritage management revolves, from conservation to promotion. Since then, I’ve worked in heritage branding with a London consultancy, focussing on narratives as the foundations of brand strategies and cultural retail for heritage organisations.
In my parallel life, I’m a researcher. Drawing on the fields of Philosophy, Semiotics and Cognitive Science, I have examined visual communication and language. I’m currently completing my Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded PhD in Anthropology of Art (Durham University, UK), studying how different cultures use different visual conventions to tell their stories through pictures.
Heritage interpretation unites these two paths: using effective verbal and visual communication techniques to give voice to the stories of heritage and engage the widest possible audience. I am an IE Certified Interpretive Guide and Writer, and as the Research Coordinator, my goal is to help strengthen the heritage interpretation approach by backing it up with research findings and fostering research on its benefits.
As a hobby, I post on my blog Heritales, where I combine photos and short creative texts on cultural heritage, tangible and intangible, famous or off the beaten tracks. I’m a bread-lover, detective story addict and Pink Floyd believer.
