Writing exercise: An object talking about heritage

The purpose of this exercise is to find out something new about a tradition by changing the perspective. How will an object talk about human activity? The exercise leads the view from tangible cultural heritage to intangible. Transformation is enable by a change of perspective revealing something new.

Ideal number of participants: 6–15.

Duration: 20 minutes for writing, 5 minutes for reading the text/participant.

Materials required: At least pen and paper, preferably also objects related to cultural heritage.

Step-by-step description

1. Choose an object related to cultural tradition.
2. Give it a look. Imagine it looking at you now. Imagine that it has looked at people practicing a tradition.
3. Write a monologue for the object. Let it speak its mind.

Tips to the instructor: You can do the exercise by reminiscing about objects, if the objects are not concretely available. The exercise works significantly better if the group first gets to examine some objects and then choose the ones they want.

Note: The basic idea for the exercise came from puppet theater artist Johanna Latvala.

Video example

Watch the attached video to see how this exercise was run in our Finnish pilot, and how some of the heritage objects spoke to the participants.