DIVING INTO THE DIGITAL: EXPLORING HERITAGE ONLINE

Heritage Moments | Carly Wolowich

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Museums are changing. With the advent of the World Wide Web, the physical bricks-and-mortar museum has now been extended, as audiences around the world are enabled to learn and engage with heritage from their very own home. Virtual exhibitions are subverting their seeming ephemeral nature to acquire a sense of permanence—as physical exhibitions have specific opening hours, online exhibitions are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

As noted by Sara Angel, Founder, Executive Director and Publisher of the not-for-profit Art Canada Institute (ACI),

“Cultural expression is a need and a human right—one so fundamental that the United Nations General Assembly enshrined it in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Yet it is something that only 30 percent of Canadians are actively interested in or reached by”. 

With an increase in digital exhibitions over recent decades the answer as to how to interact with wider audiences seems to lie in the online realm.

Heritage Toronto, a charity and agency of the City of Toronto, celebrates and commemorates the city’s rich heritage and the diverse stories of its people, places, and events — both to make sense of our present and to inform our future. Creating programs such as Yonge Street: The Heart of Music City, a digital tour developed by Kristen McLaughlin, I find Heritage Toronto’s online presence exemplifies a sense of inclusivity and connection often remis in the walls of museums and art galleries. To learn more about Heritage Toronto’s digital creations I corresponded with Lucy Di Pietro, Manager of Marketing and Communications, to ask her some questions regarding the display of heritage online.

Image taken from Yonge Street: The Heart of Music City. Source.

In thinking of what work goes into creating web-based exhibitions and programming, Lucy notes there are two main streams which ideally should be developed in tandem – content development and digital production. The first, content development, follows much the same processes as it would for a physical exhibit or program; “the consideration of goals and outcomes, who the audiences are, and developing a strong narrative or experiences that meet the project's objectives and speaks to the audience(s) interests, needs, and desired behaviour”. According to Lucy, “in developing this content, ideally we would consider the delivery mechanism and medium. As an example, you might select a different visual for a digital project than if you were treating the same subject in a museum exhibit space”. In thinking of digital production, Lucy also notes such processes to span front-end and back-end development which could include the development of video and audio experiences. Digital production “is highly specialized, and in our case (and I suspect the same for many museums) the work is outsourced to professional contractors”.

In response to my question of what are the greatest strengths in sharing culture digitally, Lucy says there are two:

-Accessibility (assuming there is internet affordability and access to devices and equipment which is not always a given).

-Depth (you can layer a lot of information in a digital interface which you can't really address in a physical environment). This allows for customized user experiences that can be very high-level or be more like deep scholarly dives.

While there is an intrinsic malleability in the creation of web-based material, cultural institutions are still faced with determining what stories to tell, and whose voices to include in such narratives. Lucy notes moving forward, a main objective for all of Heritage Toronto’s programs (including digital) “is to bring under-represented voices and perspectives to the stories that define our city. Doing so, we believe not only contributes to sense of place, but helps create a compassionate city which honours its diverse stories so that each resident feel reflected, and has a voice, in its future”. As a result, Heritage Toronto has a broad definition of heritage, which Lucy says is best described in their recent State of Heritage Report. In this report it “includes the tangible (traditional) definition, but also the very important and defining intangible elements of behaviours, beliefs, traditions and cultural practices, etc”. Furthermore, Lucy asserts that “in all our work, an underlying priority is to pursue partnerships. This is especially the case where we are exploring the heritage of a cultural or ethnic community, to which none of our staff belong. Community members may reach out to us directly, (e.g. The Little Manila tour we offered from 2016-2018) or we may reach out to them based on a program idea/concept (e.g. The ArQuives for our PRIDE walk)”.   

Image taken from Yonge Street: The Heart of Music City. Source.

Woking in the realm of the digital affords cultural institutions a new medium for expression with new forms of communication. Online exhibitions and programming force us to rethink ideas surrounding access and inclusion and demand us to reconsider the very definition of the museum itself. Lucy Di Pietro noted “that many museums are doing fantastic digital work which is immersive and innovative”. At the beginning of a potential cultural shift, online exhibitions and programming hold the potential to reshape how society interacts with and considers heritage.

Please comment below any of your favourite online exhibitions and programs!