ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the effectiveness of emotion as a framing tool for engaging visitors at heritage sites and museums. Living Memory is a video recording module that invites a visitor to contribute their personal story through a fixed emotional lens. The chapter outlines how this module was trialled at three sites of practice. discusses the trialling and use of the Living Memory module at three sites of practice–educational, industrial and community. In driving the collection of memories, this affective language has the potential to influence how people view the past and provide them with alternative narrative structures. The importance of engagement–the creation of a relationship between display and audience–is exemplified in recent moves towards co-production in museum and heritage interpretation. Taken together, the stories from Living Memory trials demonstrate a new diversity in visitor engagement, and a more conscious affective practice in telling their story.
