What are you Facing?

Are you facing a historical site? How can you tell?

If it is a historical site, it is likely to have a name and a designation - a national park, a museum, or a heritage center. It would have a restroom, climate control, perhaps a kiosk, a café, or a small shop. Maybe entry fees are required. Someone collects them. Someone cleans the place. Someone sells beverages. Someone shuts it at night and opens it in the morning.

All this effort is invested because this place is important. Its history is important—at least one of its histories. But what had been here before this site? What is the history of the site itself?

Perhaps you are facing a non-site: a stone, a street, a building, a landscape. There is no sign, no gate, no fence. A non-site usually does not have clear boundaries. It is unmarked. It marks that there is nothing of interest here. There is no history. Or, at least, no important history.

But you have halted. Something tells you that this place has a story. The space around is loaded with historicality. You might want more information to be available. The lack of information is present here – like the faded rectangle on a wall where a picture has been removed. The history here is present‑absent.

Don't forget – knowledge is power. Lack of knowledge is a space that may be abused.