Building a Digital Park: Recontextualising Lived Experiences at Towneley Park, Burnley

Abstract

This paper discusses a research project exploring the effect of digital heritage creation and interpretation on park space meanings. Adopting a multidisciplinary and practice-based approach, this project engaged directly with local park users through interviews, field visits and the development of a website. The aim of this project was to explore how the research process and website development affected the participant’s perspectives on the park space.

The paper will discuss the key themes of the data and how the multiple participant narratives traverse space and time within the park. The thematic structure and premise of the website will be detailed before discussing some of the issues which arose during the digital development process. Finally, participant’s reactions to the project will be explored showing that space and time in the park, and the website representation of it, are related less to linearity than to the habitus and rhizomatic forms.