Building Engagement

Open-air museums are always looking for ways to engage the public. What is the best way to offer visitors a glimpse into the past? How can open-air museums be used to address issues of interpretation and social responsibility in the modern world? Luke Winter and Zsolt Sári discuss their views with host Matilda Siebrecht on how museums can engage with the public, providing authentic storytelling, and the social responsibility of museums and heritage centres in the modern world. 

Luke is the director of Historic Concepts Ltd. An experimental archaeologist by training, and the former manager of the Ancient Technology Centre in Dorset, he has a unique skill set that enables him to take complex evidence and convert it into “living projects” that bring together authentic and traditional skills, archaeologically proven processes, ancient structural design, and long-term experiments.

Zsolt is the deputy director at Skanzen, the Hungarian Open-Air Museum, a predominantly ethnographic museum focusing on life in the 19th and 20th centuries. His work revolves around the communication of traditional Hungarian culture, focusing on the social responsibility of museums to engage with past cultural traumas and modern world issues.