The Eden Project mostly known as a popular visitor attraction in beautiful Cornwall. It is famous for having the largest captive rainforest its Rainforest Biome and also for it’s Mediterranean Biome. Additionally, they have the popular Eden Sessions during summer, which are concerts held at its main stage. However, mainly Eden is an educational charity that aims to reconnect people with the natural world and with each other. They do this by using leaflets, informational boards and interactive exhibits around the site.
The project I am involved with at the Eden Project is called ‘Life Givers’ and it aims to communicate the worlds’ and in particular Eden’s energy story using a trail of sculptures and other art-based exhibits. These exhibits will show the range of ways people harness energy and the steps taken towards a carbon-neutral world. The end result will be a physical trail along Eden’s Zigzag pathway with the exhibits serving as checkpoints. At each exhibit there will be information on boards to explain the nature of the exhibit, with further information in a trail guide which will be available at the start of the trail.
My main role in the project will be to work with the interpretations team in collecting all the necessary information that will eventually be condensed onto the boards and the trail guide as a story line. The research conducted will be collected into a ‘Masterfile’; a scientific document which will serve as the backbone for the whole project. This will need to be properly referenced and coherent so that it can be understood by partners of the project and other friends of Eden and also for gaining the correct permissions for material printed for the general public.
12th July 2016, was my first day as an intern at the Eden Project. I met up with Sarah Peake my contact and supervisor at Eden at 10am, at the Foundation Building of Eden. On meeting Sarah, who was so friendly I was immediately put at ease. I was taken to where my desk will be, and was briefly introduced to fellow interpreters and other teams working at Eden. I was then given a tour around the building. Later, we sat down in the staff room dining area and discussed the project. I was given a folder which included a draft proposal for the Masterfile, a content research brief and an ‘Eden Internship Objectives’ questionnaire which will act as a personal guide to what I should be doing at each stage of my internship. I was then taken to be given an Eden Badge(yay!) which included a photograph(not so yay) and was then given time to read through the proposal for the Masterfile so that I could clarify any doubts I had over lunch.
For lunch we were joined by Jo Elworthy, who is the Director of Interpretations and a fellow intern who is also working on the Life Givers project. After lunch, Jo went over the proposal in more detail – as she was the one that actually wrote the proposal – and explained each section in detail. We were also treated to a few lovely and unbelievable stories about Jo, her life and how she got involved with Eden. After lunch, I was shown around the Eden site and the easiest ways to get to the Foundation building from the site.
After returning to the Foundation building, I set to work with the draft of the Masterfile. Sarah then signed me up for a Welcome Week programme the following week and I was told that I could work on any area that I would like to despite initially being proposed the energy story of Eden- the relationship with Eden and their energy provider Good Energy. After separating the proposal into sections to organise my thoughts and adding a few notes of my own, I decided to start working on the Nuclear and Geothermal story of Eden and then venture onto the story with Good Energy. I decided to also try do some work on the new and emerging technologies with respect to energy.
For the following weeks, I hope to finish both the Nuclear and Geothermal Masterfile entries. This will involve sections for each including its history, the process, any challenges and their solutions if any. However, I believe the emerging technologies section will take longer as it will involve more reading than the other sections as the range will be wider. This I plan on keeping up throughout my stay at Eden, as it depends on how many articles I read and if I come across any new developments.