Emma Bickford
Transforming Dark Tourism Sites Into Cultural Hubs Through the Lens of Medfield State Hospital
Weaving between the condemned buildings of Medfield State Hospital, visitors traverse the same paths those who lived with mental illness once did in the late 19th century. The staff and patients of the psychiatric facility have long departed the expansive campus leaving behind only memories and condemned brick buildings. Under a new historic rehabilitation plan, Medfield State Hospital is unbarring the asylum to the public by repurposing the former wards into housing units and a cultural hub for artists.
The proposed rehabilitation of the hospital’s historic structures envisions a promising future for the former State Hospital Complex. By understanding the implications and ethical criteria for transforming dark tourism sites into cultural hubs from a cultural heritage resource management perspective, we learn that it is not always appropriate to preserve sites of tragedy in their original state simply for the sake of dark tourism and the dark tourist experience. Rehabilitation treatment plans can enhance the visitor experience at these sites while maintaining the historic integrity of the site. Through positive transformations of dark tourism sites that meet my proposed ethical criteria, communities can be built around culture, art, and history without forgetting or ignoring the victims of traumatic historic events that occurred in these spaces.
Emma Bickford, MA, (efbickford@gmail.com) holds a Masters in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University and Bachelors in History and Marketing from Saint Anselm College. With a lifelong interest in all things macabre, Emma’s independent research focus is dark tourism as it relates to historic psychiatric hospitals and sites of historical crime. Her educational background focuses on how historic sites and cultural landscapes are represented, imagined, and transformed for public access, use, and tourism.
