It’s easy to assume that digital innovation is centred in urban regions – yet in Sutherland, Timespan Museum and Arts Centre provides a shining example of an organisation that leads the way in digital audience engagement practice.

A first-round participant in Culture Republic’s AmbITion Scotland programme, Timespan first created their Museum Without Walls app – which allowed visitors to Sutherland to explore the events of the Highland Clearances within the wild landscapes where they originally took place. To do this they worked with a developer to create an experience for visitors taking them out of the museum and into the hills allowing visitors to literally walk in the footsteps of people from the past. The video below from AmbITion Scotland’s annual conference tells the story of this project in their own words.

Not content to rest on a single digital project, Timespan worked in partnership with the Scape Trust, a second round AmbITion Scotland participant to create an immersive and interactive virtual model of the Brora salt pans, the first industrial building in the Highlands. The archaeological dig was undertaken in part by community volunteers so participation and engagement have been a hallmark of the project from the start. The interactive model is available to Timespan Museum and Art Gallery visitors as well as online researchers and hobbyists telling the story not just of the site itself but also of the modern community’s involvement with its own local history.