The purpose of the M.E.S. was the performance or enactment in public and private of histories of many sorts.
The society was interested in the locality and its stories: to use a term coined by the charity ‘Common Ground’, Local Distinctiveness. Simultaneously, the society was trying to question the role of re-enactments in the Heritage industry and our mediated experience of the past.
We encouraged the active participation of the audience in the heritage of their local environment through an act of ‘pilgrimage’, commemoration and ‘enactment’.
We hoped to bring virtually forgotten narratives to public attention whilst simultaneously nurturing local memory – to bring the past to life in the present.