How Arts, Culture and Heritage can boost our Giant Stories
We are looking for our talented makers, writers and artists to work with these stories, to make them sharp and resonant so they touch people the world over.
The power of stories
We want our guests to leave touched by the Giant Spirit of Northern Ireland. Our stories can do that – if we tell them well. Well-told stories have a magic in them; they are viral, coded to be repeated and remembered.
As hosts to our international visitors, we want to be hospitable and welcoming, sharing something of ourselves and our place. Stories that emphasise empathy and relationships can do that better than names, dates and facts.
Our unique and potent stories are everywhere, rooted in our land, water, and sea. They make Northern Ireland a distinctive and memorable place to visit. Arts, culture and heritage businesses have the power unlock those stories.
Harnessing our treasures
Our material heritage, artefacts, buildings, physical structures, and our inherited traditions and skills are potent reminders of our stories, of our identity and of our character – for people who know the connections. Skilled heritage interpreters can present this tangible and intangible heritage in ways that illuminate our past to visitors from other backgrounds and cultures.
Ulster American Folk Park
The Ulster American Folk Park is based on a collection of extraordinary authentic objects and around original buildings related to the Ulster/Irish migration experience in the USA and Canada. These buildings, the first of which were moved to the museum in the 1970s, are powerfully evocative of the lives of the migrants and their descendants.
Over the years, more original buildings and a replica of the Union Brig, a ship that carried migrants, have been added to the collection to create an immersive resource with great storytelling and experiential potential. To date the stories told have focused on the comparison between the lives the migrants left behind and those they found on the other side of the Atlantic. The emphasis has been on success stories, of people who became well-to-do and influential.
The Folk Park is now looking at other stories that their collection, possibly with new buildings added, could cover. In particular, they have included the experiences of Ulster/Irish who had more difficult experiences, including those ending up in crime and prostitution, and considers the impact of the migrants’ lives on the indigenous people and enslaved African-American people. The collection of buildings will remain at the heart of the Folk Park and its appeal to visitors, as the experience changes.
Look at How to use storytelling skills to bring heritage to life for more on using stories to bring heritage to life. This section will help you think about how you could develop and use stories associated with your own site, activities or collections.