CHRONOLOGY OF THE DRAFTING, REVIEW, AND REVISION OF THE PROPOSED ICOMOS CHARTER FOR THE INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES

Spring 2002: The Origin of the Idea for an Interpretation Charter. The staff of the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation, working in collaboration with JeanLouis-Luxen, then serving as ICOMOS secretary general, initiated the idea of an international doctrinal text on interpretation and presentation. The Ename Center, founded in 1998, is a publicly funded, non-profit organisation, sponsored by the Province of East-Flanders, Belgium in cooperation with the Flemish Heritage Institute. The founding goal of the Center was to develop and disseminate expertise relating to the public interpretation and sustainable development of archaeological sites, museums, historical monuments and landscapes both in Flanders and at partner sites and organizations throughout the world. To that end, the Ename Center organized a series of scholarly seminars and meetings and Center staff members participated in conferences and workshops on the theme of Interpretation in Europe and the US. A central concern in these discussions of public interpretation and presentation was the matter of standards. Although many scholars and heritage professionals were deeply involved in the subject of interpretation, there were no agreed-upon standards for scientific and intellectual integrity, no specific interpretation standards for community involvement and no guidelines or criteria for appropriate mechanisms of funding and management of interpretation and presentation programs. Because of this situation—and because of the importance of the doctrinal texts of ICOMOS—it became apparent that some form of international consensus would be helpful in the continuing development of this field. Jean-Louis Luxen, who had participated in several Ename seminars, was a valuable advisor and suggested that ICOMOS might be the most appropriate institutional framework for the drafting of a potential international charter dealing with interpretation and presentation.