‘Our Place’, ‘My Place’, ‘Your Place’ all describe the relationship we have to where we are or what we
identify with, particularly to what we identify as ‘home’. The National Trust festival for 2008 takes the
theme of place and uses it to celebrate that ownership we feel for the places that are important to
us.
Sense of place is talked about a lot. We all understand when we describe a sense of place
that we identify with. It is much harder to understand that sense of place when others describe a place
beyond our experiences.
Sense of place is that ephemeral something that makes us react to a place and is a phrase
generally used to describe a feeling of grounding, belonging and memory. It is immediately identifiable
and yet very hard to articulate. Over a number of years now the National Trust conservation conference
has discussed sense of place in relation to other concepts: Suburbia, Out There?; Heritage Under
Glass and Context all dealt with attitudes and reactions to types of places and steps that can be taken
to preserve ‘sense of place’.
It is well recognised by people dealing with mental health issues that sense of place and
identity issues play a large role in both cause and treatment. This is particularly well articulated in
research into Indigenous health issues but it is also true for other groups and one of the most vexing
facing immigrant communities.
The history of settlement in Australia is peppered with attempts by immigrant populations to
instil a sense of place that they can identify with in their new and alien home from ‘taming the wilderness’,
to planting familiar trees and plants, to building Chinatown and recreating Tuscan villas. Each
wave seeks to stamp its own cultural identity. While they’re doing that the settled population bemoans
the loss of what they identify as ‘Our Place’.
Despite criticisms by those who want us to ‘live in the present’, by nature the present doesn’t
last and in a second becomes the past. Memory of that past is basic when it comes to issues of identity.
The United Nations ratified the right to memory as a fundamental human right many years ago.
The effects of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia is perhaps an extreme example of what happens when
we seek to build a future while denying a past but it is a lesson that should be remembered.
Threats to sense of place don’t have to be as intentional or severe they can simply occur
because development does not recognise either the importance or fragility of the sense. Sense of
place can occur because of a particular atmosphere, a predominant landform, common plantings,
density, scale, wildlife, vistas and a myriad of the less tangible such as the smell of a particular type of
shop or noise from a school or the sea.
The Conservation Conference for 2008 will concentrate on the issue of ‘Sense of Place’ in a direct
way. Speakers will include a psychiatrist talking about mental health issues related to loss of identity
and papers are being sought from historians, sociologists, immigrant groups, the Indigenous community
and those fighting to save a place.
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The National Trust is calling for papers for its annual conservation conference to be held on
