‘I expected … something’: imagination, legend, and history in TripAdvisor reviews of Tintagel Castle

Previous research (Orange & Laviolette [2010] A disgruntled tourist in King Arthur’s court: Archaeology and identity at Tintagel, Cornwall. Public Archaeology, 9(2), 85–107; Robb [1998] Tourism and legends: Archaeology of heritage. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(3), 579–596) has described the interpretative tension at Tintagel Castle between history and Arthurian legend; since these articles were written, a sculpture that English Heritage says is ‘inspired by the legend of King Arthur, by the historic kings and royal figures associated with Tintagel,’ and a carving of Merlin’s face have been added to the site. Using discourse analysis of TripAdvisor reviews, this article explores how legend and history are experienced by visitors. Despite an ‘inextricable’ link with Arthur, his actual absence here in both physical and narrative realms equals an absence of imaginative stimulus, for which the statue, while enabling superficial physical interaction, cannot compensate. Likewise, many reviewers see the medieval remains not as a presence of ruins but an absence of castle, and are similarly uninspired to transport themselves into a historical narrative. It is only reviewers inspired by history who engage the ruins as a ‘thing’ whose imaginations immerse them in their visit

FDTL voices : drawing from learning and teaching projects

This publication draws on insights and experiences from individuals and teams within learning and teaching development projects in higher education. It considers lessons learnt from the processes, outcomes and tangible outputs of the projects across the spectrum of the FDTL initiative, with the intention that colleagues can draw on and benefit from this experience. The overriding theme at the heart of every FDTL project has been the desire to achieve some form of positive and meaningful change at the level of the individual, institution or discipline. The continuing legacy of the programme has been to create wider community involvement as projects have engaged with the higher education sector on multiple levels - personal, institutional, practice, and policy. This publication has remained throughout a collaborative endeavour, supported by Academy colleagues. It is based around the four themes emerging from the initiative as a whole: • Sectoral/Organisational Change • Conceptual Change • Professional and Personal Development Partnership and • Project Managemen

The Bee Brick: building habitat for solitary bees

This article describes the process of designing the Bee Brick - a novel solution for integrating solitary bee habitats within buildings. Of the 250 species of bee in the UK, 90% are solitary bees of which 5% nest in cavities. Bees are key pollinators; this product provides nesting habitats for bees in suburban/urban communities. Existing bee nesting products tend to be ornamental and marketed by aesthetic considerations. Mainstream construction materials' primary function is to perform as structural components within the fabric of new buildings. These materials have been taken as a starting point to create habitat for bees displaced by the construction process. The Bee Brick provides a nesting site for solitary bees, adapting and rethinking how existing building components are used. Made using locally sourced recycled materials, it offers the dual function of being a construction material that also promotes biodiversity

Insiders and outsiders researching insiders and outsiders by Lucy Frears & Laura Hodsdon

Revoice research was an international research project led by Dr Laura Hodsdon at Falmouth University. Our research in Cornwall brought up issues around intersubjectivity - what was happening when non-Cornish (English) interviewers interviewed Cornish people about their identity. We expanded on this idea to create a workshop at the Symposium: Re:voicing Cultural Landscape Narrative and Non-narrative traditions across media

“Picture perfect” landscape stories: normative narratives and authorised discourse

Despite the positive impacts of an increasing number of organisational initiatives and campaign groups, unequal access to the countryside remains an intransigent issue. Contesting the countryside’s normative associations is thus not just a conceptual challenge but a practical one for organisations managing rural sites. Taking the National Trust-run site of Wembury in Devon, UK, as a case study, I use critical discourse analysis to uncover institutions’ (including the National Trust and other charities, news media, and factual programmes) and individuals’ (using TripAdvisor data) discursive constructions of the landscape. Emerging themes include discourses of place, activities, and people, that – despite some dissonance and seeming contestation – cohere and (re)produce ideologies based on normative narratives of rural landscapes. I suggest the potential value of discourse analysis in surfacing rural storyscapes, and leveraging them to disrupt discourses which further exclusionary ideologies, as a tool to enable locally contextualised, practical means of advancing inclusion

Visitors’ discursive responses to hegemonic and alternative museum narratives: a case study of Le Modèle Noir

Recent reflection on the role of museums and galleries has focused on their socially situated nature; and that as a social construct, co-produced with its audiences, heritage is in part discursively constituted. This has included acknowledgement that the inherited discourse is hegemonic and exclusive of divergent narratives, leading to moves to create alternatives to contest it, which include temporary exhibitions. These provide a potentially democratic space for discursive incursions freed from the constraints of the permanent museum. But they are also spatially and temporally peripheral, occupying a discursive space outside the standard visit. This raises questions as to whether, once the exhibition is over, the alternative will be subsumed once more. This article explores this issue using a dataset of TripAdvisor reviews to analyse the discursive responses of visitors to temporary and permanent collections, using the Musée d’Orsay’s 2019 exhibition Le Modèle Noir as a case study. Analysis shows that Le Modèle Noir reviews exhibit greater discursive fragmentation, reveal a relative lack of appeals to collective identity, and do not connect the exhibition with the permanent collection. Potential implications of this for initiatives that seek to counter the hegemonic narrative are discussed

‘Absences’, in Shakespeare E and MacMillan V (eds) Sensing the Land

Creative and reflective contribution to collection from the Landscape Research Group's Isle of Arran Critical Field Study, published by Landscape Exchang

Experiencing Online Orchestra - Communities, Connections and Music-Making through Telematic Performance

Telematic performance offers significant potential for musicians in remote communities to perform together, increasing access to the type of ensemble music-making that is commonplace in urban areas. This article presents a range of perspectives taken from interviews with participants in the Online Orchestra pilot performance. Participants highlight the significant potential of telematic performance to overcome the challenge of music-making in geographically remote communities. The feasibility of making music in latency-rich environments is corroborated, as is the importance of the conductor in telematic performance. Suggestions are given for the fine tuning of peripheral equipment, and a preference emerges for the more traditional and simple music commissioned by the project

Re:Voice

Re:Voice, a participatory theatre performance co-created with Tuesday Fun Night Club Choir from Penzance, forms part of a major European research project Re-voicing Cultural Landscapes led by Falmouth University in collaboration with Universities of Latvia, Tartu (Estonia) and Groningen (The Netherlands), exploring cultural traditions in Cornwall and other regions in Europe which asked how living heritage can be made vital and resilient. The project has been made possible by support from Arts Council England, Feast Cornwall and Falmouth University, and it is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Directed by Agnieszka Blonska with imPOSSIBLE producing, choir leader Victoria Abbott and the Tuesday Night Fun Club; with lighting and projection by Joshua Pharo and choreography by Jennifer Fletcher and Claud Tonietto. The show premiered during the Last Weekend at Tate St Ives on April 29th, 2023