Hidden Heritage: Concealment, Reuse and Affective Performance in Historic Buildings and Digital Heritage

This article considers material heritage of the Middle Ages and early modern period which was deliberately obscured from public view, exploring this concept in light of concealed objects' emotional impact and cultural meaning, the status of such objects as part of a 'performance of concealment', and the role that concealment played in the creation of heritage. A series of architectural and smaller-scale digital heritage case studies articulate the complex ways that concealment shaped meaningful heritage narratives, both in the past and today - particularly as concealed material culture was often remediated or reused from other heritage settings.