The Keynote Address will be given by Franklin “Frankie” Vagnone.

Franklin “Frankie” Vagnone is a visionary Public Historian and founder of Twisted Preservation Cultural Consulting, an internationally recognized firm transforming how cultural institutions engage with audiences. He was co-author with Deborah Ryan of the groundbreaking book “The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums,” which expounded his innovative approaches to cultural preservation. The book earned him numerous accolades, and his popular blog reaches readers in over 85 countries.

After his keynote presentation at the joint ICOM DEMHIST-CECA conference (2017), we are pleased to invite him to again present at our Open Talks 2025. His Keynote presentation, Allegorical Interpretation: When Houses Roam introduces the concept of allegorical interpretation as developed in his forthcoming book “When Houses Roam: Pillow Talk with Historic Sites”.

Drawing from John Hejduk’s insight that “a house roams at night when its occupants sleep,” he will demonstrate how heritage sites perform meaning beyond their intended purpose when allowed to speak their full truth. In our current political moment, when heritage sites increasingly become tools of propaganda pressed into service of rigid national narratives, allegorical interpretation offers a vital alternative. Traditional interpretation globally privileges a single, authorized narrative tied to a specific period. However, houses are vessels of memory, and an allegorical approach accesses parallel narratives that exist between our careful documentation, revealing stories that transcend political appropriation and rigid interpretation.