The Iron Bridge in mixed media: An artistic reflection on interdisciplinary research

PVA glue and coloured tissue paper may not immediately spring to mind as primary research materials for conducting a study of how the values of an industrial World Heritage Sites are communicated to tourists. Finding myself on an art day focused on the world’s first Iron Bridge certainly made me reflect that interdisciplinary research rarely turns out as you expect! Over the course of a year I carried out a mixture of ethnographic, geographic, digital humanities and contemporary archaeological fieldwork in Ironbridge Gorge. The valley is famous, amongst enthusiasts at least, for being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, but that’s not necessarily the story that the million or so tourists who visit each year encounter. Tourism, much like interdisciplinary research, is messy and colourful, varied and even a little weird. In this participatory paper I will reflect on the contributions and challenges that the four disciplinary lenses brought to the study and everyone will get to try some collage too!

CORALIE ACHESON, ARUP