Bespoke Heritage Events
HERITAGE
events
Amanda has spent over ten years creating bespoke, interactive herbal storytelling sessions, workshops and performance pieces for Museums, Botanic Gardens and Heritage organisations.
She has delivered sell out workshops for The Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, shared Scottish folklore and herbal stories at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, told Spice stories in Chelsea Physic Garden in London, collaborated on multi-disciplinary projects such as Up the Middle Road at the Crichton and created series of interactive sessions for the National Museum of Scotland’s Rural Life Museum amongst others.
Each piece is carefully curated to connect to the collection or themes of the venue. Amanda ensures that the audience will be able to find the herbs she mentions in the gardens or that the stories connect to the history of the treasures in your collection, her sessions really engage audiences and offer a unique opportunity to interact and learn from a place.
“ Your amazing storytelling abilities combined with the visualization products we had on display,(animations, augmented reality, and even the physical timeline you created), gave a wider view of the medical heritage of Glasgow, which enabled us to connect to so many more people. Using the variety of materials and extra resources you brought allowed us to make the experience multi-sensory, which in turn engaged more people…
From the day, it was clear to see that visualization works incredibly well with storytelling to tell a story!”
- Kirsty Earley
Digital Heritage Officer, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
A note from Amanda
Each venue is unique, so I like to start creating each piece by having an initial conversation with the engagement team to find out what their hopes are for the event.
I then explore the site and discover the history for myself, often discovering subtle herbal connections and folklore that may add to the piece. During lockdown I still conducted ‘site visits’ with the help of creative venue staff by exploring collections digitally or via ‘facetime’ or film, a process I have continued to use to make the creative planning and writing process more sustainable for the more distant locations.
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Once carefully planned and curated, I add other elements, source relevant herbs, often from my own garden or wild-crafting trips, for tisanes to accompany the stories, so the herbs in the story can be tasted, touched and smelt. For bookings that cover several days, mini residencies, or projects which require longer developmental periods, I share my processes in written tasters, pictures and blog posts on social media and create small films for reels, these give the potential participants or remote fans of the venue an interesting new point of engagement. As a huge personal fan of museums and botanic gardens, creating special sessions for venues drawing on my own herbal storytelling experience is one of my favourite parts of my work. Once the creation process has started, anything is possible!
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Project Archive
Dive into some of Amanda’s recent bespoke projects and collaborations with innovative heritage organisations