A Quest for Nottingham:
“It’s not like it used to be…all the history is gone; it’s just shops now.”
I was at Wollaton Hall, making my way through the gardens, when an old lady had
approached me to ask me where I came from. After giving her my song-and-dance of
“America…Rhode Island…smallest state in the US…studying at NTU…short courses…Gill Street….Yes,
Nottingham…I love it here,” she began to explain that Nottingham was not how it used to be when
she was younger. According to her, the history is gone.
From what I could tell her statements weren’t meant to be callous. If anything her words
were a form of sad nostalgia. Once she left me, I began to question all that I had experienced in
Nottingham. Since my arrival, I have gone to countless museums and heritage sites—I have listened
to tour guides explain the histories of stately homes; I have been given access to private archived
material; I have stared in awe at the well-preserved artefacts on display behind wires and glass
cases--and yet, I had come across this elderly woman who told me, kindly, that what was left—what
I had been seeing—is not wholly true of Nottingham’s past.
That got me thinking: How well does Nottingham actually preserve its history and heritage?
And furthermore, is the interpretation provided an accurate representation of the past?
***
According to Goulding (1998):
Since the 1960s there has been a dramatic growth in the number of museums and heritage
attractions…and what had previously been of little mass popular interest, namely museums
and historical sites, came to be described as a new industry, the ‘heritage industry’…the
issue of how the past is interpreted in museums and heritage attractions is a well aired
argument…[i]t is a commonly held view in academic circles that popularising heritage
involves sacrificing scholarly credibility by presenting only those images of history that have
a broad market appeal (835-6).
According to Farquharson et.al (2010):
A Quest for Nottingham:
We wanted to bring something of the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people back into
circulation…much of this activity took place in heritage sites, and as a part of wanting to
rescue history from its victors we sought to recover the violence of history, as well as the
silenced voices of opposition, from its sanitised commodification by the leisure and
entertainment industries (13).
***
For the most part, scholarly sources are not far off from the elderly woman’s claims.
According to Christina Goulding’s article on contemporary heritage attractions, in order to
attract a crowd, the historical truth found at museums and heritage sites gets obscured
because emphasis is placed more on the consumer. Specifically Goulding states that “while
buildings and artefacts may be authentic, the selective portrayal of events and histories are all
too often tailored to pacify the tastes of the modern visitor” (837).
But even with this research, I was not satisfied. To get a firsthand account on the validity of
museums and heritage sites, I went to the streets of Nottingham and asked people within the
area about the preservation of the city's history and heritage. This short film is a compilation
of my interactions with those people.
References
Goudling, C. (1998).The commodification of the past, postmodern pastiche, and the search for
authentic experiences at contemporary heritage attractions. European Journal of Marketing,
34.7, 835-853. Retrieved from http://www.emerald-library.com
Farquharson, A., Hanna, L., Colin, A., Scotini, M., Ree, J. & Cummings,N. (2010). Introduction. In A.F.,
F.P., & A.S. (Eds.), Histories of the Present (12-13). Nottingham, England: Nottingham
Contemporary.