Bluecoat Arts Centre Heritage Trail

The research question revolved around the initially pragmatic notion of how a heritage trail can be created by an arts practice? How to create a multi-layered narrative of a building/institution through historical material and use? How can a heritage trail spatially and temporally be constructed within its current site? How can information be communicated? From the research into the sources and locations of existing historical material developed more complex questions about the nature of archives, organisation and access.

The spatial practice of Tea, the on going investigation of place and space and the concern with the layered ecology of sites provided the structuring principles of the investigation of a heritage trail. This was further developed by integrating the temporal dimension into the process of thick or deep mapping of both the building and the institution. This included the history of building in the context of city and people that had been central to evolution.

The artist’s commissioned Steve Symons to develop new software for the delivery of the interactive element. The brief given to Stymons was based around the artist’s proposed structuring and presentation of archive material. The artists worked with Symons in the development and running of the software and designed pages and input all the material.

The construction of the archive brought together data, and artefacts (visual records) that had been stored in a number of separate locations and collections. The interactive nature of the archive allows multiple searches and pathways through the historical narratives of the building and institution e.g. artists, architects, movers and shakers, visitors, learners, VIPs and tenants, events and exhibitions, and the Bluecoat in the context of the city of Liverpool. In this particular case the heritage trail provides a spatial encounter with the building and an archive both of which can be accessed and used by the public and be a resource for the Bluecoat education unit.

There are two components to the trail: an interactive element in the “hub” or the entrance area and a series of electronic screens which run a programme of scrolling images of former activities or configurations of that particular space forming a trail around the building.