The necessity of meaning

This paper explored the creation and attribution of meaning in our environments, urban and rural. ‘Meaning’ may be the most essential attribute of heritage, and yet is often unrecognised in conservation processes. A focus on meaning may be seen as challenging the primacy of heritage fabric, but an important question is the extent to which fabric and meaning coincide and coexist.

The paper will argue that meaning arises through engagement – by people, with culture and with place – and is continually made and remade. As humans we shape our environments and our objects and we inevitably embed them with meanings. Meaning is resilient, residing in memory and practice, enabling its endurance and revival. But equally it can be ignored, countered or at worst repressed.

When meaning is lost, does heritage remain? When the places of our hearts are stripped bear, when other hands make the pots our grandmothers made, when we can no longer find the street we played in as a child, what is left? Who feels the loss? How can we retain a sense of connection and a meaningful engagement with ‘our place’ when everything is changing? Recognition and respect for attributed meanings will be suggested as being vital to sustaining cultures and diversity.

The paper explored these ideas in relation to several heritage places with examples chosen from Australia and South East Asia.