The Interpretation Centre is Closed Part II: Night-time Mystery

"Daytime history, night-time mystery" is the slogan of PAHSMA's ghost tours. The didactic mission of the Interpretation Plan applies only between the opening hours of 9 am to dusk.

That's not the mystery encountered by every visitor to Port Arthur who attempts to comprehend Tasmania's brutal past within their present; it's the mystery of dark shadows gathering beyond the feeble fringe of light thrown by the lanterns, of odd patterings and scutterings in the boughs of the oak-trees, of spine-tingling shivers and pricklings at the back of the neck. At night the ruins speak a universal language that needs no interpretation.

In the aftermath of April 28 1996 Tasmanians publicly questioned the ethics of trading on former misery. Margaret Scott wrote of

 a gradual shift from the presentation of Port Arthur as the symbol of a system which helped to change Australian attitudes, a place in which we can make an imaginative contact with our origins, to a different kind of marketing ploy in which history is sanitised, slicked up and packaged as entertainment...Local residents whose forebears were convicts say very little but hint sometimes that this is because they feel that nobody will listen, that the district's major employer is out of their hands. 'You wouldn't have ghost tours of Anzac Cove', said one quite recently. Well, no. You wouldn't.

Since then 'dark tourism' has become an internationally recognised field of academic study, but the discussion seems to have lapsed in Tasmania. The ghosts of Port Arthur are raised and buried anew by each visitor who dares to look Tasmania's history squarely in the eye, and the tours provide employment, albeit casual, for Tasman Peninsula residents.

Ghost Tour at Port Arthur, (PAHSMA, Birch 2008)

 

 

I love to hate the ghost tours, but I do enjoy first-hand accounts of paranormal phenomena. Here's a premium selection:

• http://hobartghosts.com/  Great photos of orbs in Hobart's Penitentiary Chapel.

• http://royalderwent.com/ Intriguing mix of council reports, business listings and psychic investigations at Willow Court, New Norfolk. Posted by a local who's fascinated with the place (Jarvis, 2012).

• http://portarthurparanormal.wordpress.com/  Try a Port Arthur Paranormal Investigation Experience at only $125 a head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References
PAHSMA - photographer Simon Birch (2008). Ghost tour at Port Arthur. [image online] Available at: http://www.portarthur.org.au/index.aspx?base=5911.

Jarvis, N. (2012). Willow Court & Royal Derwent Hospital. [online] Retrieved from: http://royalderwent.com/ [Accessed: 5 Dec 2012]. Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (2010).

Port Arthur - Ghost Tour frequently-asked questions. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.portarthur.org.au/index.aspx?base=6611 [Accessed: 5 Dec 2012].

Scott, M. (1996). Toward a fresh apprehension of past and present. Island, (67), p.85.

The Interpretation Centre is Closed Part I: Future Ruins

...the advance of a true civilization is retarded by the fact of the non-existence in these Australian colonies of any monuments or visible records of the Past. In European countries, the face of the land is overspread with the suggestive vestiges of Ruin.

The Courier, 1857.

The Course of Empire: Desolation. (Cole, 1836)

In the nineteenth century 'ruin' described the moral failure of people, particularly women, or the financial collapse of companies, more often than it denoted a fallen building. Architectural ruins could be a warning, a sobering reminder of past follies. Historians documented the cyclical rise and fall of civilisations, and followers of Edward Gibbon attributed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to the decadence of its citizens, enervated (and corrupted) by their wealth and luxury self-indulgent lifestyle.

Louisa Meredith was more concerned with aesthetics and associations with her former home in England when she gushed over a "moss-grown wooden water-mill...innocent of perpendicularity in any line about it...looking really ancient and venerable in a young land".

All buildings in these new countries are so completely the things of yesterday, and generally look so glaringly and obtrusively new and discordant amidst the surrounding scenery, that it is especially pleasant to see anything of human work which has really mellowed into something like an harmonious character, and so this crazy old weather-board mill won its way to our admiration.

At the time Meredith saw it, the Carrick mill was some 20 years old. It was replaced by a "tall, sharp, greviously-neat, new mill", which is still standing over 160 years later (Meredith, 1852).

Present-day ruin of our once and future chicken shed

When in idle fancy I dream about the future ruins of Tasmania, up there with the Marine Board building and the Hotel Grand Chancellor are the visitor and interpretation centres. If the aviation fuel runs out, if I have to retreat to the economic refuge of Victoria, there’ll be a touch of pleasure mixed with my concern as I view the satellite images of mossy guttering, gaping floorboards, drifts of disintegrating gourmet menus and mushrooms sprouting in swollen bundles of tourist brochures.

Forest Of Fungi (116/365)  (Leonrw, 2009, displayed under a Creative Commons license)

I don't like visitor or interpretation centres. I don't like the presumption that anyone who crosses the carpark into a national park is a foreigner in need of expert translation of the ecological or historical significance of the place. I object to being labelled a visitor in my own neighbourhood. (I’m not laying claim to all of Tasmania as my backyard - I draw a line north of Oatlands, and another somewhere south of Recherche Bay.) It's a weasel word that accustoms Tasmanians to facilities that benefit tourists at the expense of residents. The high capital investment required for the mounting of permanent exhibitions in interpretive galleries, however expertly and thoughtfully prepared, limits the space and funds available for temporary displays which can provide a fresh perspective on old favourite artefacts, buildings and landscapes. I do enjoy a well-ventilated toilet block, but I'd rather a homemade sandwich on a mountain-top than an artisanal ciabatta in a cafe, and the gift shop can go virtualise itself.

There are alternatives. 'Different Readings', an exhibition at the (then) Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, placed newly commissioned furniture within the period alcoves. MONA's optional 'O' commentary can be ignored at will, and revels in subjective 'Gonzo' as well as expert 'Art Wank' . Hobart's Domain and Sullivan's Cove podwalks, produced by TMAG and Heritage Tasmania, provide information on demand, bucking the trend for intrusive and verbose interpretation panels. Heritage professionals could take a leaf from the book of National and State Libraries Australia: the 'Enabling People strategy of the 'Re-imagining Libraries 2012-16' strategic plan promises that

We will provide opportunities for people to co-curate their online and documentary heritage and to contribute their knowledge and expertise...People are experts and creators, contributors and interpreters; they are the authorities on their business, their culture, their profession, their stories and their environment.

When I envisage a heritage site where user-generated content is rapidly uploaded to a socially inclusive geo-tag-enabled fluidly evolving mobile app, I could be channelling that self-acknowledged tourist Louisa Meredith:

The hills seem to heave with a deeply murmured eloquence, and we understand their tales of times gone by; the rivers roll along their volumed and rapid waters, and we hear in the mighty music, the voices of " men of olden days," who dwelt, fought, or died within its sound. We leave the scene of our day-dream, and journey far away; but memory has traced and treasured it; it is safely registered in undying freshness on her fair tablets, and ...[we] can at will gaze on the remembrance-picture.

 (Meredith, 1839)

References

Cole, T. (1836). The Course of Empire: Desolation. Oil on canvas. New-York Historical Society, Gift of The New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts, 1858.5. [image online] Available at: http://www.nyhistory.org/press/image-downloads/hudson-river-school-0 [Accessed: 4 Dec 2012].

THE COURIER. (1857, March 25). The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859), p. 2. Retrieved 26 Nov, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2458544

Leonrw (2009). Forest of Fungi (116/365). [image online] Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leonrw/3454980483/ [Accessed: 4 Dec 2012].

Meredith, C. (1852). My home in Tasmania, during a residence of nine years. [e-book] London: J. Murray. pp. 115-6. Available through: http://www.hathitrust.org/ http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b302964 [Accessed: 26 Nov 2012].

Meredith, C. (1839). The annual of British landscape scenery: An autumn ramble on the Wye.[e-book] London : W.S. Orr and Co. pp. 10-11. Available through: http://www.hathitrust.org/ http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89096955836 [Accessed: 26 Nov 2012]. 

Nsla.org.au (2012). Enabling People | National and State Libraries Australasia. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.nsla.org.au/enabling-people [Accessed: 4 Dec 2012].

Test your memory

I play the card-game Memory to win, so I had shivers down my spine when I drew near to the end of Rememori, a version created by Christine Wilks (2011). Rememori is “a degenerative memory game and playable poem that grapples with the effects of dementia on an intimate circle of characters.” Try it out, if you're feeling strong.

If your own memory worries you, there are several clinically trialled tests listed at alzheimersreadingroom.com. They are described as self assessment tests, but note that they are not intended for self-diagnosis, and most are designed to be conducted by trained medical practitioners.

Memory's tricks have been given some colourful names: confabulation, cryptomnesia, fugue state, memory illusion, memory distortion, retroactive interference...sounds like a list of retronaut time capsules. The shiftiness and power of memory are discussed by Kotre (1995) in White Gloves: How we create ourselves through memory. 'Transmissive remembering' is used to "pass on to others one's cultural heritage or personal wisdom, or to bear witness to significant historical events" (p. 176). 'Life review therapy' for the elderly can improve health and well-being, even "bring a sense of integrity, coherence, and completion to one's life" (p. 178) but Kotre warns that

There are events in our lives that can never be undone, no matter how we rework them in our minds. There is damage that cannot be repaired, regrets that cannot be assuaged. Opening up what cannot be fixed may result in depression, guilt, anger, panic, and obsessive rumination... (p. 180).

Enough to give this prospective oral historian pause for thought! It seems that aged care professionals and oral historians have quite different agendas when recording senior citizens' reminiscences. Some guidelines for ethical practice are available from the websites of the Oral History Association of Australia and the US Oral History Association.

I grew interested in 'witness literature' as a genre when reading Murakami's Underground: the Tokyo gas attack and the Japanese psyche. That's led me to my current reading, The Studs Terkel reader: my American Century, and I've bookmarked the website of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education for a time when I'm feeling particularly strong. The institute collects testimonies from survivors and witnesses of genocide, and makes them available for educational use in order to "overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause" (sfi.usc.edu, 2007).

References
Alzheimersreadingroom.com (n.d.). Test Your Memory for Alzheimer's (5 Best Tests) | Alzheimer's Reading Room. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/p/test-your-memory-for-alzheimers-5-best.html [Accessed: 5 Dec 2012].

Crissxross.net (2011). crissxross: creative works by digital writer & artist Christine Wilks. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.crissxross.net/ [Accessed: 5 Dec 2012].

Kotre, J. N. (1995). White gloves: How we create ourselves through memory. New York: Free Press.

Murakami, H. (2003). Underground: The Tokyo gas attack and the Japanese psyche. London: Vintage. 

Sfi.usc.edu (2007). About Us | USC Shoah Foundation. [online] Retrieved from: http://sfi.usc.edu/aboutus/ [Accessed: 5 Dec 2012].

Terkel, S. (2007). The Studs Terkel reader: My American century. New York: New Press.