'Immersive' heritage encounters

Abstract

This article introduces and analyzes the immersive turn within museum and heritage contexts. Three immersive heritage encounters from the UK are introduced, which demonstrate practice being promoted and sold through the rhetoric of “immersion” and “experience;” Traces (2017), I Swear to Tell the Truth (2018), and The Lost Palace (2016). These case studies are used to test a definition of immersive heritage as story-led, audience and participation centered, multimodal, multisensory, and attuned to its environment. Although immersive heritage often interweaves digital and physical resources, its digitality, I argue, should not itself be understood as a defining feature. The article concludes by summarizing challenges for research and practice in the nascent field of immersive heritage going forward.