Art and Heritage Education in a Digital Art Center

Abstract

The article analyzes how a digital art center can become a critical, participatory, and inclusive space for artistic and heritage education, articulating theory and practice around an immersive exhibition on La Ruta at the Bombas Gens Centre d’Arts Digitals (Valencia, Spain). A qualitative interpretive approach based on hermeneutic phenomenology is adopted. Data were generated through six focus groups, comprising 30 professionals from the fields of visual arts, education, and visual culture, following a visit to a recent cultural heritage installation that incorporates immersive technologies; the data were then analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis. The results show that technological immersion only acquires educational value when it is coherently integrated into the story and accompanied by pedagogical mediation, reveal the role of vicarious nostalgia and heritage literacy in the construction of collective memory, and evidence narrative silences around subaltern voices and social controversies. It is concluded that this digital art center can function as a hybrid learning laboratory for teacher training and heritage education, as long as technological spectacularization is subordinated to processes of participation, epistemic justice and critical reading of heritage.

1. Introduction

This theoretical framework is articulated around three interdependent conceptual constellations: vicarious nostalgia (anemoia) as an emotional and cognitive mechanism for accessing the unlived past, recent and disputed heritage as a category that problematizes the management of conflicting historical legacies, and digital art centers as hybrid museographic devices capable of mediating between memory, technology, and sensory experience. The exploratory design that underpins the article argues that the deliberate mobilization of vicarious nostalgia constitutes a legitimate strategy —and sometimes the only viable one— to enable the emotional and critical access of audiences without direct experience to a heritage marked by dispute and temporal proximity, provided that such mobilization is reflective, contextualized, plural, and sensitive to the ethical limits of representation [1,2].

1. Vicarious nostalgia and disputed recent heritage

Vicarious nostalgia is defined as a form of longing directed towards a time period that the subject did not personally live, and that is independent of the individual’s lived experience or memory [3,4]. The term anemoia is defined as nostalgia for a time that was never known [5]. Subsequently, Chi and Chi [4] conceptualized vicarious nostalgia based on three empirically validated dimensions—past-oriented cognition, evoked positive emotion, and evoked negative emotion—demonstrating that this phenomenon is driven by the search for authenticity and meaningful prediction and the intention to visit in heritage tourism contexts. This induced nostalgia, often evoked through media, museographic or advertising representations, is based on the collective memory of the group rather than on the individual biography, and the ability to reinforce the perception of heritage and affective attachment to heritage objects, brands or places has been demonstrated [6]. In the field of heritage tourism, recent research confirms and expands on this relationship: Bhogal, Mittal, and Tandon [7] show that vicarious nostalgia has a significant impact on the behavioral intentions of visitors, mediated by the memorable tourist experience, while a study in the city of Hue shows that both personal and historical nostalgia positively affect this memorable experience, although with a greater weight of personal nostalgia [8]. A recent systematic review of two decades of research on nostalgia confirms that this phenomenon has evolved from a psychological construct to a strategic driver of the heritage experience, constituting one of the least consolidated lines of research and with the greatest future projection [9]. This dimension is especially relevant for thinking about digital mediation devices, insofar as they can generate, through immersive and narrative resources, emotional access to the past that transcends the limitation of lived experience [4].

Boym [1] makes it explicit that one is not nostalgic for the past as it was, but for the past as it could have been. This distinction is methodologically productive for the analysis of the digital art center in our study, insofar as it allows us to differentiate devices that seek a mimetic and uncritical reconstruction of the past (restorative nostalgia) from those that activate an ironic, fragmentary, and critical relationship with memory (reflexive nostalgia), consistent with the proposal of mobilizing anemoia as a mechanism of critical—not merely evocative—access to disputed heritage [1,10].

On the other hand, disputed heritage refers to those assets, practices or heritage narratives whose legitimacy, symbolic ownership or meaning are in tension between different social groups.

In this study, the digital art center is approached as a contemporary space for heritage mediation in which immersive, audiovisual, and interactive technologies actively participate in the construction of memories, stories, and collective identities. This approach is based on the notion of dissonant heritage formulated by Tunbridge and Ashworth [11], who pointed out that heritage has an inevitably conflictive nature, given that all heritage attribution involves processes of belonging, selection, and exclusion. From this perspective, heritage cannot be understood as a neutral legacy or as a consensual set of cultural goods, but as a field of negotiation in which diverse interests, memories, values, and interpretations converge [11].

All heritage is shaped by decisions about what to preserve, what to show, what story to privilege, and which memories are less visible; therefore, every heritage practice potentially contains dimensions of conflict, exclusion, and negotiation of meanings [12]. In the case of the digital art center, these decisions materialize not only in the selection of content, but also in its own technological languages of representation, as well as in the degree of contextualization offered and in the forms of participation that are enabled for audiences.

The concept of difficult heritage, developed by Sharon Macdonald [13], allows us to delve deeper into this problem by referring to those pasts that, despite being recognized as significant, are conflictive for the construction of a positive and self-affirming collective identity. These are memories that can reopen wounds, question hegemonic narratives and activate social, political and affective tensions in the present. Unlike the idea of dissonance, which refers more broadly to the coexistence of divergent interpretations, difficult heritage refers to legacies capable of destabilizing the ways in which a community represents itself and projects its future [13].

In this sense, the digital art center is not only considered a place of technological exhibition, but a possible site of memory, in dialogue with the concept of *lieux de mémoire* proposed by Pierre Nora [14]. For Nora, sites of memory are not reduced to physical spaces, but also include archives, monuments, objects, works, rituals, images, and cultural practices in which memory is fixed, transmitted, and reactualized. From this perspective, immersive installations and digital devices can act as contemporary supports of memory, by articulating images, sounds, narratives, archives, and bodily experiences that connect the past with the concerns of the present [14].

Through resources such as immersive projection, three-dimensional recreation, immersive audiovisual environments, body interaction or digital visualization of archives, the center can bring its visitors closer to historical contexts, disappeared territories, heritage works, testimonies and plural narratives. However, technological immersion does not in itself guarantee a critical understanding of the contents. Its educational and heritage potential depends on sensory intensity being accompanied by devices of mediation, contextualization and reflection that allow the public to situate the experiences in their historical, social and political frameworks [2,13]. Otherwise, there is a risk that heritage will become a predominantly spectacularised experience, detached from conflicts, power relations and the ethical implications that give it meaning. This tension is particularly relevant when depicting expressions of vernacular art associated with traumatic events or memories of historically subalternized communities, since their digital exhibition requires careful strategies of interpretation that avoid the aestheticization of pain, the simplification of conflicts, or the appropriation of other people’s voices [2,13].

The analysis of the digital art center therefore focuses on how technological resources are articulated with the construction of heritage narratives: what content is selected, what voices are represented, what narrative frameworks predominate, what affects are mobilised and what possibilities of interpretation are offered to the sample participating in the study. This view allows us to assess whether immersive experiences contribute to a more plural, democratic and critical understanding of heritage or whether, on the contrary, they reproduce univocal narratives, decontextualised or focused exclusively on visual impact.

In line with the debates on patrimonial justice, the interest is also in examining who is recognized in these narratives, what memories become visible, what experiences remain on the margins, and what cultural futures are imagined and transmitted through digital technologies [13]. Nora characterizes these places according to three coexisting dimensions—material, functional, and symbolic—and warns of the nostalgic component inherent in these “enterprises of piety” that seek to fix what history dissolves [14]. This capacity is related to the contemporary need to generate links with the past in a context of technological acceleration and identity instability. Huyssen [15] points out that the intensification of the present and the loss of temporal continuity favor a growing orientation towards memory. In this framework, immersive experiences can activate forms of vicarious nostalgia, that is, affective links with times not directly experienced, through atmospheres, stories and images that bring the past closer to the visitor [16].

Digital art centers are thus inserted in the transformation of the traditional museum into the hybrid museum, characterized by the convergence between physical and digital spaces to expand the heritage experience, interaction, and learning inside and outside the institution [17]. However, technological immersion does not in itself guarantee a critical understanding. It can promote empathy and memorability, but it can also simplify conflicts, aestheticize pain, or produce an illusion of direct access to the past if it does not incorporate contextualization, plurality of sources, and participation of affected communities [2].

For this reason, the study examines how the center articulates technological resources, heritage narratives, and mediation strategies: what content it selects, how it represents difficult or disputed memories, what emotions it mobilizes, and what possibilities it offers for critical reflection and participation. In line with the debates on heritage justice, attention will be paid to who is recognized in these narratives, which memories are made visible, which are left on the margins, and what cultural futures are projected through digital technologies [13,18].

In this context, the deliberate mobilization of vicarious nostalgia—understood in its reflexive variant, following Boym [1], and not restorative—allows digital art centers to generate an emotional approach to the past that does not require having lived it, but is constructed through fantasies, atmospheres, and sensitive reconstructions anchored in collective memory [4,6,7]. This access route, far from constituting a naïve or commercial simplification of the past, can activate processes of critical scrutiny of history and memory typical of reflexive nostalgia, favoring an understanding of the past not as a total and uncritical reconstruction, but as a fragment that can be inhabited from the present [1]. The dissolution of experiential distance through immersive digital resources thus turns the digital art center into a contemporary site of memory [14] capable of affectively processing heritage dissonance without renouncing its conflictive complexity, provided that such mediation incorporates criteria of heritage justice, narrative plurality and ethical responsibility towards the communities represented [2,13].

2. Heritage literacy as an interpretative dimension

This section of the theoretical framework argues that the relationship between exposure to a digital art center and the critical appropriation of heritage is not direct, but is mediated by the degree of heritage literacy developed by its visitors during the digital museum experience, incorporating the most recent scientific production (2023–2025) on heritage learning models in digital environments [19,20,21]. The most recent and empirically validated framework of reference on heritage literacy in digital environments comes from Olaia Fontal’s team, which has developed the Heritage Learning Sequence (HLS), a sequential model that articulates heritage learning in interdependent phases, with knowledge being the first phase that allows the identification of the causes and justifications that explain the nature and state of an asset, providing the necessary basis for its assessment [20]. Based on this model, Fontal, Ibáñez-Etxeberria, Arias, and Arias [19] developed the calibrated Q-Herilearn scale, an instrument validated using factor models and item response theory (IRT) to measure heritage learning specifically in digital environments, also applying psychometric network analysis to determine the dimensional structure of the construct [19]. Fontal, Ibáñez-Etxeberria, Gil-Biraud, and Arias [21] specifically analyzed the dimensions of knowledge and understanding of cultural heritage in digital environments using MIMIC models and network analysis, concluding that both dimensions are strongly interconnected, so that the understanding of heritage depends to a large extent on the degree of prior knowledge [21]. This finding is methodologically relevant, insofar as it empirically supports the status of heritage literacy —operationalized through its dimensions of knowledge and understanding— as a robust interpretive dimension in digital heritage learning processes.

In addition, the explanatory model of learning in heritage education proposed and validated by Fontal, Arias, and Arias [22] provides a relevant foundation for analysing the educational potential of the digital art center. The model identifies a sequence of interlinked processes—knowing, understanding, respecting, valuing, caring, enjoying and transmitting—and confirms direct relationships between these dimensions. In particular, knowledge of heritage favors its understanding, and both processes constitute a necessary basis for moving towards its valuation and meaningful appropriation [22].

In relation to the case studied, heritage literacy is understood in this study as an interpretative dimension that allows us to analyze how participants recognise, question and negotiate meanings linked to heritage based on their experience in the museum environment. Thus, immersion, interactivity or sensory impact should not be evaluated only for their ability to attract or excite the public, but also for their contribution to contextualized knowledge and understanding of the historical, social, artistic and territorial meanings of heritage. Without these processes, the experience can remain on a predominantly aesthetic or spectacular plane, without necessarily translating into valuation, care or transmission of the cultural legacy. The literature on extended reality technologies reinforces this idea.

Innocente, Ulrich, Moos, and Vezzetti [23] propose a framework for the analysis of XR technologies applied to cultural heritage, highlighting factors such as immersion, the sense of presence, and the user’s capacity for agency. These dimensions allow the visitor not to simply receive information passively, but to explore environments, interact with content, and establish a more situated relationship with heritage elements.

Therefore, the digital art center can not only be understood as a space for technological innovation, but also as a context for learning and heritage mediation. Specifically, it makes it possible to examine the extent to which resources such as virtual and augmented reality, immersive projections, three-dimensional reconstructions or interactive environments contribute to visitors recognising cultural assets, understanding their contexts and conflicts, attributing value to them and developing attitudes of respect, care and transmission. In this way, technology acquires educational value when it favors a reflective, critical and socially significant appropriation of heritage, beyond the visual or sensory impact of the experience [22,23].

Recent literature underlines that this mediation depends on complementary factors. The usability and accessibility of devices condition the effective inclusion of diverse audiences; digital storytelling facilitates the communication of complex heritage values; and interaction in digital networks and communities can prolong the museum experience, promote participation, and expand heritage educommunication processes [24,25,26,27]. In this sense, the case study can assess both the face-to-face experience and the center’s digital and communicative strategies, taking into account their capacity to generate learning, dialogue, and critical participation.

However, digitalization does not in itself guarantee inclusive or democratic heritage literacy. Inequalities of access, different digital skills, usability barriers and institutional control of narratives can limit participation and reproduce pre-existing forms of exclusion [28,29]. Therefore, it is necessary to consider digital competence and critical thinking as inseparable dimensions of heritage learning in digital museum environments [30].

Finally, the Heritage Learning Sequence and the Q-Herilearn scale offer a conceptual and methodological basis for operationalizing this relationship. These models allow the dimensions of heritage knowledge and understanding to be evaluated as interpretive dimensions linking the digital experience to the critical valuation of heritage [19,20]. In turn, the MIMIC models used by Fontal et al. [21] allow the relationship between latent variables and observable indicators to be analyzed. Thus, the study suggests that the experience in the digital art center can contribute to the critical appropriation of heritage to the extent that it activates heritage literacy processes during interaction with devices, and not only because of the previous characteristics of visitors [21,31].

The articulation of these three conceptual axes—vicarious/anemoia nostalgia, difficult/disputed heritage and digital museographic mediation—allows us to substantiate the central thesis of the article. When heritage is recent and disputed, its direct access is hindered both by the absence of lived experience in younger generations and by the persistence of unresolved identity conflicts between the groups involved [13]. In this context, the deliberate mobilization of vicarious nostalgia—understood in its reflexive variant, following Boym [1], and not restorative—allows digital art centers to generate an emotional approach to the past that does not require having lived it, but is constructed through fantasies, atmospheres and sensitive reconstructions anchored in collective memory [4,6]. This access route, far from constituting a naïve or commercial simplification of the past, can activate processes of critical scrutiny of history and memory typical of reflexive nostalgia, favoring an understanding of the past not as a total and uncritical reconstruction, but as a fragment that can be inhabited from the present [1]. The dissolution of experiential distance through immersive digital resources thus turns the digital art center into a contemporary site of memory [14] capable of affectively processing heritage dissonance without renouncing its conflictive complexity.

3. The digital art center as an educational space

The Contextual Learning Model: Falk and Dierking [32] propose as a framework for understanding the visitor experience in cultural institutions. This model articulates three interrelated contexts—personal, sociocultural, and physical—that, in their interaction over time, shape the learning experience. Personal context includes “prior knowledge, prior experiences, interest, motivation, choice, and control”; the sociocultural context attends to group and cultural mediations; and the physical context encompasses spatial design and exhibition objects (p. 26, [32]). In a digital art center, the physical context expands to incorporate digital interfaces, virtual environments, and interactive devices that reconfigure the visitor experience [33].

The participatory museum and co-creation: Simon [34] defines a participatory cultural institution as “a place where visitors can create, share, and connect with each other around content” (p. ii, [34]). Their model distinguishes different levels of participation—contributive, collaborative, co-creative and hosted—that allow the degree of agency of the public to be graded. This participatory approach, originally designed for physical museums, takes on new dimensions in digital art centers, where technological tools facilitate co-creation, interaction between visitors and the generation of content by users.

(Post) digital pedagogy in cultural institutions: Wollentz [35] analyzes the emergence of a (post)digital pedagogy in museums, focusing on “how digital technology can help museum professionals stimulate active participation and co-creation with an audience” (p. 3, [35]). Rather than focusing on technological tools per se, this approach examines the educational forms that emerge through the use of digital technologies, seeking to overcome the dichotomy between the digital and the physical in cultural dissemination and mediation activities [36].

Lupo et al. [37] address the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation in the cultural heritage sector from a multidisciplinary design approach, identifying three relevant themes: digital transformation, inclusive engagement and new experience rituals, which are directly applicable to the analysis of digital art centers as educational spaces.

The new museology and interpretive communities: Hooper-Greenhill [38,39] develops the concepts of post-museum and interpretive communities to describe cultural institutions that go beyond the model of unidirectional transmission of knowledge. In her proposal, visitors are active participants whose “individual, social and cultural backgrounds are negotiated to shape personal meaning” (p. 82, [39]). This theoretical framework is essential to understand the digital art center as a space where the interpretation of art and heritage is a social process mediated by both community and technology.

The UNESCO Framework (2024): In February 2024, UNESCO [40] Member States adopted in Abu Dhabi the Framework for Culture and Arts Education, which underlines the capacities of digital technologies and artificial intelligence in cultural and arts education to promote intercultural dialogue and linguistic diversity and emphasizes the need to strengthen relations between educational and cultural institutions [41].

This institutional framework provides legitimacy and guidance to arts and heritage education initiatives in digital art centers, by explicitly recognising that cultural and artistic learning should be lifelong and extend to all educational settings, including non-formal and informal settings [42,43].

1.1. Hypotheses and Tensions

One of the most debated assumptions in this field is whether digitalization really democratizes cultural access or whether, on the contrary, it reproduces participation gaps and new forms of exclusion [44,45]. UNESCO’s framework takes an affirmative but nuanced stance: it underlines the expansion of opportunities through digital technologies and artificial intelligence, while insisting on the centrality of inclusion, media literacy and bridging the digital divide [40,46]. On the other hand, the critical literature warns that digital visibility does not necessarily equate to meaningful participation and that platform logics condition the cultural and heritage experience, generating hierarchies of attention and forms of “platformized participation” [47,48,49].

Another relevant tension affects the role of the digital art center as an educational space. On the one hand, these centers can function as participatory institutions where visitors and learners create, share, and co-create content, in line with the approaches of critical museology and cultural participation [34,50]. On the other hand, its potential depends on participation not being merely nominal, but implying real agency, contextualization, and quality pedagogical mediation [39,51]. This ambivalence justifies analyzing the digital art center not only as a technological infrastructure, but as an educational, social, and cultural ecosystem articulated with international guidelines on culture, education, and digital technologies [40].

1.2. Purpose and Contribution

The main objective is to analyze how professionals linked to art education, cultural mediation, heritage and digital practices interpret the potentialities, tensions and limits of an immersive exhibition dedicated to La Ruta: Modernidad, cultura y descontrol, based on an interpretative framework composed of six axes: aesthetic experience, heritage construction, mediation and learning, participation, inclusion and accessibility, and the critical dimension of digital technologies. Based on the six proposed axes, the research seeks to identify what theoretical foundations sustain these practices, what opportunities the digital environment offers and what limits or controversies emerge in the relationship between art, heritage, technology and participation [52,53,54]. Consequently, the study aims to contribute both to the academic debate and to the design of more inclusive, critical and culturally sustainable educational strategies, aligned with UNESCO’s framework on arts and culture education and on digital and AI skills [40,46]. Although the study dialogues with perspectives related to vicarious nostalgia, difficult and dissonant heritage, participatory museology, post-digital pedagogy, and epistemic justice, these concepts are used as complementary tools for the interpretation of the results. The analysis focuses mainly on the processes of heritage meaning-building developed by the participants during their experience in the hybrid museum.

2. Materials and Methods

Research Approach and Design

The study adopts a qualitative interpretative approach based on hermeneutical phenomenology, aimed at understanding the meanings that the participants attribute to their experience in the hybrid museum. Data production was carried out through focus groups and their analysis through an inductive thematic analysis. Although the study is situated in the field of art education, the visual arts are mainly the context and conceptual reference of the research, rather than a specific methodology for data production or analysis. Focus groups were organized through non-probabilistic convenience sampling. Participants were assigned to groups according to their availability and the previously agreed date of attendance. Therefore, the composition of the groups responded to pragmatic criteria of accessibility and convenience, without a strict random assignment. This decision facilitated participation and ensured the feasibility of the sessions, although it limited the extent to which the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the groups could be controlled.

The research is developed around the visit to the exhibition La Ruta. Modernidad, cultura y descontrol [The Route: Modernity, Culture and Lack of Control] (hereinafter: La Ruta) at Bombas Gens Centre d’Arts Digitals (hereinafter: Bombas Gens) (Valencia—Spain), a space of Art Deco industrial heritage converted into a center for digital art. Participants were organized into six focus groups.

The exhibition La Ruta offers an immersive journey through the socio-cultural phenomenon of the Bakalao Route in Valencia during the eighties and nineties. The exhibition analyzes its musical, artistic, aesthetic and social dimensions, as well as the transformation of Valencian forms of leisure and nightlife. The tour is divided into ten rooms and covers more than 2000 m², where historical documentation, photographs, original pieces, testimonies of protagonists, interactive installations, 360° VR virtual reality, 3D content and laser mapping projections are combined. These resources turn the exhibition into a sensory experience that allows you to approach both the spaces and sounds of La Ruta and its historical context and contradictions (Table 1).

The exhibition does not present the phenomenon only from nostalgia, but also from a cultural and social perspective, taking into account its innovative and transgressive nature, its international projection and the circumstances that led to its decline.

Table 1. Technologies or resources used and their functions.

Technology or Resource	Function Within the Experience
VR 360º Virtual Reality	It places the visitor within an audiovisual reconstruction of the nights and environments of La Ruta.
Laser mapping	It projects light and image onto the architectural space to turn the room into an immersive visual environment.
360º projections	They expand the field of vision and generate a sense of spatial continuity.
3D Generated Content	They recreate scenarios, atmospheres and routes that are difficult to present through physical objects.
Interactive Installations	They favor an active and bodily relationship between the visitor and the story.
Music and sound	They reproduce the sound dimension of club culture and reinforce the emotional response.
Photographs, documents and original parts	They provide historical and material anchorage to the digital story.
Testimonies of protagonists	They incorporate oral memory and personal perspectives on the phenomenon.
Virtual guide via QR code	Provides additional information during the visit.

Table 1. Technologies or resources used and their functions.

Technology or Resource	Function Within the Experience
VR 360º Virtual Reality	It places the visitor within an audiovisual reconstruction of the nights and environments of La Ruta.
Laser mapping	It projects light and image onto the architectural space to turn the room into an immersive visual environment.
360º projections	They expand the field of vision and generate a sense of spatial continuity.
3D Generated Content	They recreate scenarios, atmospheres and routes that are difficult to present through physical objects.
Interactive Installations	They favor an active and bodily relationship between the visitor and the story.
Music and sound	They reproduce the sound dimension of club culture and reinforce the emotional response.
Photographs, documents and original parts	They provide historical and material anchorage to the digital story.
Testimonies of protagonists	They incorporate oral memory and personal perspectives on the phenomenon.
Virtual guide via QR code	Provides additional information during the visit.

The sample was composed of 30 professionals specialized in art education, visual culture and education. The inclusion criteria were: (a) participation in the educational visit to Bombas Gens Centre d’Arts Digitals and (b) voluntary agreement to participate in the focus groups (Table 2).

Table 2. Sample characteristics.

Variable	Description
Number of participants	30
Main profile	Master’s students
Training environment	Art education, visual culture and education
Previous professional experience	Education, arts, cultural management and related fields
Inclusion criteria	Participation in the activity and consent to participate
Previous relationship with the Center	Specify whether or not there was a previous relationship with Bombas Gens or La Ruta

Table 2. Sample characteristics.

Variable	Description
Number of participants	30
Main profile	Master’s students
Training environment	Art education, visual culture and education
Previous professional experience	Education, arts, cultural management and related fields
Inclusion criteria	Participation in the activity and consent to participate
Previous relationship with the Center	Specify whether or not there was a previous relationship with Bombas Gens or La Ruta

The sociodemographic data of the sample were reviewed in order to ensure consistency between the absolute frequencies and the percentages reported, correcting the percentages relative to the geographical origin of the participants when necessary.

The sample comprised 18 women (60%) and 12 men (40%), aged between 26 and 48 years. Regarding geographic origin, 39.25% of participants were from the Province of Valencia, 39.25% were from the city of Valencia, 11.76% were from the other two provinces of the Valencian Community (Alicante and Castellón), 11.76% were Spanish but from outside the Valencian Community, and 5.88% were of foreign nationality.

The selection of participants was carried out through intentional sampling by criteria, considering their link with postgraduate studies related to art education, visual culture and cultural mediation, as well as their willingness to participate in research.

Group size: between 4 and 7 participants per group, a recommended figure to ensure fluid interaction and discursive diversity.

Data collection technique: the focus group

The focus group enabled the collective construction of knowledge and meaning through conversation and interaction, providing access to representations, meanings, and experiences that individual techniques may not capture. Data collection was carried out in September and October 2025. The sessions took place at Bombas Gens as part of an analysis of the critical reception of the exhibition. Each session lasted approximately 60–90 min and included between four and seven participants.

The six focus groups followed a common semi-structured guide organized into seven thematic blocks corresponding to the dimensions of the analysis:

• Warm-up and profile of the group: previous relationship with Bombas Gens and the neighborhood, initial expectations.
• Immersive route experience: physical and emotional sensations, most meaningful room.
• Memory, identities and stories about La Ruta: previous image, confirmation/questioning, included and excluded voices.
• City, heritage and contexts: dialogue with industrial heritage, relationship with the environment.
• Technologies, museography and critical reception: influence of immersive technologies (VR 360°, laser mapping, holography, surround sound), spectacle vs. reflection.
• Ethical, political and educational dimension: both the opportunities and limitations, less visible aspects.
• Educational proposal: design of educational activity and key question.

Phases of the study:

• Phase 1—Preparation: design and validation of the script by the research team.
• Phase 2—Development: realization of the 6 focus groups after the visit to the exhibition; duration of approximately 60–90 min each; audio recording; note-taking by an observer.
• Phase 3—Transcription: verbatim transcription of each session, preserving discursive marks (pauses, emphasis, overlaps).

Ethical considerations

The participants in the focus groups were previously informed of the objectives, the dynamics of the session, the recording of the information and the confidentiality conditions. Their participation took place after the voluntary acceptance of the call and the signing of the informed consent. The status of expert was used only as a criterion for characterizing the sample and did not imply a differentiated treatment of their interventions during the analysis.

The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles applicable to research with human participants and with current institutional regulations. The research protocol was reviewed and approved by The Ethics Committee of Research in Humans of the Ethics Commission in Experimental Research of the University of Valencia, Spain, using the reference code 2025-MAGPED-4192574, dated 16 January 2025.

Data Analysis Plan: Thematic Analysis

A thematic analysis is proposed as the main strategy, complemented by an analysis of the communicative and interactive processes of the group technique [55]. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyze, and report patterns (themes) in the data, providing interpretations of the perspectives shared among the participants:

• Familiarization with the data: repeated reading of the 6 complete transcripts; Initial annotations.
• The data were analyzed through a hybrid thematic analysis. The process combined an initial deductive phase, guided by the research objectives and the structure of the discussion script, with an inductive phase of generating codes and emerging subtopics from the participants’ speeches. The data were analyzed using MAXQDA 2025 (VERBI Software, Berlin, Germany).
• Topic search: grouping codes into categories and potential themes, organized around the 7 blocks of the script and emerging themes.
• Topic review: Contrast the topics with the coded extracts and with the dataset; refinement and fusion or division of topics.
• Definition and naming of topics: writing a narrative description of each topic, with its scope and limits.
• Presentation of results by topic, illustrated with textual quotes representative of the different groups.

Although the analysis was based on the general principles of thematic analysis, a strictly reflective version was not adopted. The interpretation of the data was constructed through an iterative and consensual process among researchers, combining categories oriented by the objectives of the study with emerging themes derived from the participants’ reports.

Quality and rigor criteria

To reinforce the credibility of the study, interpretations were contrasted among the members of the research team and categories were reviewed after the initial coding. Dependability was strengthened through a common protocol for transcription, coding, and recording of analytical decisions. Confirmability was addressed by keeping a record of interpretative decisions and linking each result with specific fragments of the transcripts. Finally, transferability was supported by a detailed description of the context, participant characteristics, selection procedure, and conditions under which the focus groups were conducted.

Two researchers independently performed the coding of the transcripts. They then compared their results, discussed the discrepancies, and agreed on a final version of the category system. Discrepancies were resolved by consensus and, where necessary, by a third researcher.

Structure of the Results section

Each theme is presented with:

• Description of the topic and its relevance.
• Representative textual quotations from at least 3–4 different groups (indicating Group 1, Group 2, etc.).
• Provide an interpretive analysis of what the data reveal.
• Identification of patterns according to the profile of the participants (e.g., local vs. international perspective, prior knowledge of La Ruta vs. lack of knowledge, Table 3)

Table 3. Dimensions and categories of analysis.

Dimension	Categories
Immersive Experience	Sensory and emotional impact; Most significant room; Degree of immersion and perceived interactivity.
Memory and identities	Previous image vs. resulting image; Voices represented and absent; Construction of collective memory.
Heritage and city	Dialogue between industrial space and exhibition; Tangible vs. intangible heritage.
Technology and museography	Educational potential of immersive technologies; Tension between spectacle and critical reflection.
Ethical and political dimension	Lights and shadows of La Ruta; Gender, diversity, cultural work; Narrative gaps.
Educational proposal	Key question identified; Formative conflict; Proposed didactic design.

Initial analytical framework: axes, dimensions and deductive categories for the analysis of focus groups.

Discussion: proposed axes

In the Discussion, the results will be contrasted with the literature on:

• Immersive Museography and Heritage Education: how immersive technologies mediate the educational experience and what balance is achieved between entertainment and critical reflection.
• Focus groups as a tool for critical reception: contributions of the technique to capture collective perceptions in audience studies.
• Voices, narratives and epistemic justice: which narratives are prioritized and which are made invisible in the museographic construction of cultural memory.
• Art education and transdisciplinarity: connections between heritage, visual culture, technology and teacher training.

3. Results

The results suggest processes related to heritage literacy, reflected in the participants’ ability to critically interpret the narratives presented, identify absences and problematize certain heritage discourses.

The findings support the idea that technological incorporation, in isolation, does not guarantee the construction of meaningful learning or the emergence of a critical gaze. The exhibition had a greater educational impact when the technology reproduced dimensions of the original experience, such as the immersive room and the virtual-reality car tour, and was less effective when it was perceived as decorative, as in the case of the collapse room, which one participant compared to a screensaver. This finding supports the argument that, when technology eclipses history, objects, or mediation, a museum risks replacing its educational function with an ephemeral experience. The interpretative dimension is the thematic link between the technological resource and the narrative content: immersive technologies are coherent with the phenomenon of La Ruta (club culture, electronics, visual avant-garde), which reinforces its relevance.

The most relevant contribution of the proposal is that technologies do not appear as independent elements, but as mediators of different forms of relationship with heritage:

• Documentation authenticates: photographs, objects, testimonies and documents link the story with real people, places and experiences.
• 3D reconstruction: it allows you to visualize environments, routes and night spaces that no longer exist or that cannot be preserved in their entirety.
• Virtual reality situates the visitor: the 360° VR experience transforms observation into a spatial perception, as if the visitor were inside the stage.
• Mapping turns architecture into a story: projections on physical surfaces make the exhibition space stop being a simple container and become part of the narrative.
• Sound activates memory: music reproduces an essential component of La Ruta’s heritage, as it is not only about remembering places, but also about recovering practices, rhythms and atmospheres.
• Interaction favors involvement: the visitor not only receives information, but also walks, observes, listens and experiences bodily.
• The spatial sequence produces a dramaturgy: the journey from origins to decline reproduces a structure of introduction, expansion, intensity and closure.

From a heritage-education perspective, the exhibition therefore articulates three levels: tangible heritage (objects, photographs, and documents); intangible heritage (music, memories, social practices, and nightlife culture); and digitized or recreated heritage (VR, 3D content, projection mapping, and projections). Technology therefore functions as a tool for contextualizing and activating memory, rather than merely as a spectacular effect.

Topic 1. Immersive experience and corporality

The immersive room emerged as the most significant moment in five of the six groups, although the reasons differed substantially. For groups with less prior experience of nightlife contexts, immersion generated what one participant described as “feeling nostalgic for something you have not experienced.” This phenomenon corresponds to vicarious nostalgia, conceptualized by Chi and Chi [4] as the longing evoked by heritage experiences that the subject did not live directly, and which is activated by sensory stimuli—music, images, light—that evoke times prior to the individual’s birth. Bhogal et al. [7] and Falk and Dierking [32] confirm that vicarious nostalgia has a significant and positive impact on memorable tourism experiences and behavioral intentions in heritage tourism contexts. On the other hand, Group 3, with more cultural baggage and previous experiences in nightclubs, says: “There have not been great sensations, actually. The exhibition does not work much on the senses, although it tries. We believe that it works more on the informative/educational aspects”.

This contrast reveals that the bodily and emotional impact of immersive technologies is not uniform, but is mediated by previous life experiences, the visitor’s cultural capital and their interpretive frameworks. As Zhang et al. [56] point out, immersive technologies (VR, AR, MR) are reconfiguring the way visitors access and experience cultural assets, but their effectiveness depends on pedagogical design and contextual mediation. The perception of dizziness, reported by participants in Groups 1, 4, and 5, paradoxically functioned as an indicator of effective immersion: “I got a little dizzy and it seemed like a trance that I think is what it must have felt at that moment”.

Cross-sectional finding: sensory experience acts as a gateway to historical knowledge, but its effectiveness depends on contextual accompaniment and prior mediation, as Trunfio et al. [57] argue when they point out that advances in mixed reality empower the museum’s mission of heritage valorization and education.

Topic 2. Tension of the spectacle vs. critical reflection

All six groups addressed this tension, although with different nuances. Table 4 summarizes their positions:

Table 4. Description of the position, groups and key arguments.

Position	Groups	Key Arguments
Balance achieved	G2, G3	“It achieves a successful middle ground between entertainment and history” (G2); “If it were more traditional, it would attract less attention” (G3).
Risk of spectacularization	G1, G4, G5	“There are things that reminded me of a crazy fairground house of mirrors” (G1); “The collapse room looked like a screensaver” (G4); “When it imposes itself on the content, it can take you away from reflection” (G5).
Middle position	G6	“Spectacularity attracts and excites, but there is a risk that the format will turn the story into entertainment if it is not accompanied by a critical context” (G6).

This tension aligns with the contemporary debate in museology: innovation in heritage education through immersive technologies requires institutions to avoid succumbing to populist forms of edutainment or sacrificing social capital derived from institutional trust [58,59], in Heritage magazine, warns that museums have entered their post-digital era, where technology must be at the service of meaningful experiences and not replace educational mediation [60,61]. The data from this study suggest that spaces where technology replicates the original experience (immersive room, car tour) are valued positively, while those where technology is perceived as ornamental or disconnected from content (collapse room, mirror room) generate critical rejection.

The results reveal a tension between two interpretive possibilities. On the one hand, prior knowledge, artistic training, and heritage experience appeared to favor more complex readings of the exhibition. On the other hand, this observation also highlights the risk that cultural devices may be more accessible to those who already possess the codes needed to interpret them. Consequently, heritage literacy should not be conceived as a prerequisite that visitors must already possess, but as a competence that can be developed through inclusive, dialogic, and culturally sensitive exhibition mediation.

Topic 3. Represented voices and narrative silences

This theme represents the strongest convergence in the study: all six groups identified the absence of direct testimonies from audience members and other less visible agents. However, they differed in their assessment:

• Active critics (G1, G4, G5, G6): “They leave out the people who lived it and the public”; “More personal stories are missing”; “It leaves out stories of less visible workers: cleaning staff, security and affected neighborhoods”.
• Comprehensive justification (G2): “It is positive that it is done this way because it shows you what was happening objectively”, arguing that subjective experiences would not be representative.

In addition, Group 1 introduces a dimension of epistemic and gender justice: “Homosexual people were also still very persecuted and people were certainly not mentally prepared from one day to the next and that is not talked about”; “Also, thanks to these legal loopholes, they took advantage of many artists and that is not talked about”. From Fricker’s [62] perspective, these silences configure a form of hermeneutical injustice: the lack of collective interpretative resources that prevents certain social groups from making sense of their experiences, a gap conditioned by structural prejudice. In the museological field, Fuhrmann and Mannitz [63] point out that museums are central but contested sites to address the histories and legacies of political violence and memory, and that the selection of narratives implies decisions of power about which are prioritized and which are silenced [31,32,64].

Smith [65], through her concept of Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD), demonstrates that there is a hegemonic discourse that privileges monumentality, expert evaluation, and aesthetic values over the voices of “ordinary” people and their everyday heritage. The demand for plural testimonies expressed by the groups connects directly with this critique [66,67].

Topic 4. Construction and reconstruction of collective memory

All the groups start from a previous image of La Ruta made up of family, media and stereotyped stories (excesses, drugs, lack of control), and agree that the exhibition nuances and expands that image by incorporating the cultural, artistic and historical dimension. The participant of Group 6 (foreign) offers a comparative view: “my experience was less tinged by local nostalgia and more by the observation of how a collective memory is built in a museum”.

Halbwachs [68] established that collective memory is society’s reconstruction of the past, retaining only what is still alive or capable of living in the group’s consciousness. The exhibition operates as a device for reconfiguring memory: it transforms a sensationalist narrative into a culturally contextualized understanding. However, as Hakoköngäs [69] warns, collective nostalgia and vicarious nostalgia (anemoia) coexist in the processes of museum reception, generating tensions between experiential memory and mediated memory. Group 1 corroborates this tension by pointing out that “it is so recent that the public knows that something is missing”.

Theme 5. Heritage dialogue: industrial space and intangible heritage

Positions were polarized between participants who perceived a dialogue and those who did not:

• Perceived dialogue (G3, G5, G6): Group 3 articulates the most elaborate connection: “the exhibition of La Ruta at Bombas Gens represents an intangible heritage —the youth culture, music, urban sociability of the time—” as opposed to the material heritage of the environment. Group 5 connects farmhouses, factories and La Ruta as “different layers of memory that coexist in the present”.
• Total disconnection (G1, G2): “No way because you can’t see the building anywhere. It’s like entering a white warehouse with walls of lights”; G2 considers it “irrelevant”.

This contrast suggests that the ability to perceive heritage dialogue depends on the degree of heritage literacy of the visitor. Fontal [64] defines heritage education as a process that goes beyond simple observation: it seeks to develop skills of interpretation, critical analysis and cultural appreciation, understanding heritage not as an object but as a link between people, goods and values. Fontal and Ibáñez-Etxeberria [67] showed that Spain has become an international benchmark in heritage education thanks to instruments such as the National Plan for Education and Heritage and the Observatory of Heritage Education in Spain. The disparity between groups reinforces the argument that museums need to make explicit the relationship between the heritage setting and the exhibition content for visitors with different levels of heritage literacy [38,66,70,71].

Topic 6. Educational potential and didactic proposals

The key questions asked by the groups reveal four axes of didactic thinking:

• Historical-political axis (G2, G3): “How does the mentality and openness of La Ruta reflect the repressive historical context?”
• Transdisciplinary axis (G1): “How are artistic disciplines interrelated when there is a great cultural change?”
• Ethical-critical axis (G4, G6): “How can an experience that is born as a space of freedom and creativity end up leading to lack of control?”; “How to balance the celebration of a cultural scene with the critique of its social effects?”
• Updating axis (G2): “What is happening today at the social and cultural level? History must be made visible so that it does not repeat itself”

4. Discussion

From an interpretative perspective, these findings can be related to the approaches of heritage literacy, understood as a conceptual framework that facilitates the understanding of the processes of critical reading and construction of meaning identified in the discourses of the participants. The results should be interpreted within the adopted phenomenological–hermeneutical framework, which seeks to understand the meanings that participants constructed in relation to the museum experience. In this sense, the contribution of the study lies in the understanding of the processes of interpretation and construction of meaning that emerge in hybrid museum environments.

The results show that technological immersion, by itself, does not guarantee learning or critical reflection, but that its educational value depends on the articulation between device, narrative and pedagogical mediation. This interpretation coincides with the literature on museum pedagogy, which stresses that learning in museums does not automatically come from technical innovation, but from the quality of the interpretive experience and the conditions of participation that the institution generates [39,72]. In this sense, the exhibition reaches its greatest impact when technology replicates or intensifies constitutive dimensions of the phenomenon represented, as is the case with the immersive room or the VR car tour, while it loses effectiveness when the digital resource is perceived as decorative or detached from the narrative content. This observation reinforces the warning that technological spectacularization can displace the educational sense of the exhibition if the immersive resource does not contribute to deepening the story, but only to producing an ephemeral experience focused on sensory impact [39,73]. Some participants associated sensations such as vertigo or spatial disorientation with a more intense immersive experience, suggesting that these resources contributed to increasing their perceptual involvement in the exhibition proposal.

The thematic coherence between technology and content emerges, therefore, as the central interpretative dimension. In the case of La Ruta, immersive technologies are particularly relevant because they dialogue with a culture marked by electronic music, visual experimentation and the sensory experience of space, which favors a significant relationship between exhibition form and heritage object. From this perspective, the results not only confirm the initial questioning, but also broaden its scope by showing that the educational effectiveness of technological immersion depends on its cultural inscription in the symbolic universe of the exhibition, and not only on its ability to generate presence or perceptual realism (see Table 3) [72,73].

4.1. Vicarious Nostalgia as a Heritage Learning Mechanism

Although the participants did not explicitly use the term vicarious nostalgia, some reports alluded to emotional links with times, experiences or memories not directly lived. From an interpretative perspective, these discourses can be put in dialogue with the concept of vicarious nostalgia developed in the literature, as a possible way to understand the observed affective processes. The vicarious nostalgia identified in the data—understood as the emotion of longing for an experience not directly lived—is a relevant finding for heritage education, as it shows how recent heritage can be activated through forms of affective and intergenerational connection. This reading can be put in dialogue with studies on reflexive nostalgia and cultural memory, which understand the relationship with the past not as a mere reproduction of facts, but as a symbolic, imaginative and emotional elaboration of inherited experiences [1]. Although the concept is not formulated in the same way in classical heritage studies, it is compatible with approaches that defend an understanding of heritage as a process lived and interpreted by subjects through shared cultural practices and frameworks of meaning [74,75].

The results also suggest that this mechanism is strengthened in visitors without direct experiential referents and is attenuated when the participants have similar experiences of their own, as occurs in Group 3. This difference allows us to interpret vicarious nostalgia as an affective mediation that is especially effective when there is a generational distance from the heritage object, which opens a line of analysis on the role of embodied historical empathy in the appropriation of contemporary heritage. In a broad sense, the study expands on the previous discussion by showing that emotional activation should not be considered an accessory element of mediation, but a legitimate way of accessing heritage knowledge when it is critically integrated into a structured educational experience [74,75].

4.2. Narrative Silences and Epistemic Justice

The agreement of the six groups in pointing out the absence of voices from the public, workers, neighbors and vulnerable groups constitutes the most robust finding of the study and can be interpreted from critical museology as an effect of narrative selection. The exhibition privileges the aesthetic and productive dimension of the phenomenon—artists, DJs, designers, visual innovation—and leaves the receptive, social and conflictive dimension in the background, which generates a partially authorised and scarcely plural heritage narrative. This reading aligns with works that have shown how museums and heritage devices not only represent the past, but also distribute cultural legitimacy, determining which voices are visible, which are marginalized, and which memories are recognized as valuable [39].

From this perspective, the silences detected can be read in terms of epistemic justice, insofar as they restrict who can be recognized as a subject of knowledge and testimony about La Ruta. The demand for direct testimonies expressed by the groups reinforces the idea that collective memory needs to be activated through diverse voices, situated narratives and forms of mediation that allow the social complexity of a cultural community to be reconstructed. In the broader context of the contemporary heritage debate, this finding points to the need to move towards more participatory museography, capable of incorporating subaltern memories and narratives in tension, especially when the heritage object is crossed by controversies, stigmas or inequalities of representation [73].

4.3. Heritage Literacy as an Interpretative Dimension

The disparity between the groups that perceive the dialogue between industrial and intangible heritage and those that do not detect it places heritage literacy as a fundamental interpretative dimension. In this line, heritage is not limited to being content that is transmitted, but requires interpretative skills to recognize relationships between space, memory, social uses, materiality and cultural narratives. Approaches to heritage literacy have insisted precisely on this dimension, defining it as the ability to experience, interpret and critically analyze heritage meanings beyond their mere superficial identification [74,75,76].

Participants with more training in visual arts and heritage produced more complex interpretations and established connections more easily. Other participants needed museography and mediation devices to make certain historical, cultural, and social relationships explicit. This result should not be interpreted as evidence that the effectiveness of the exhibition depends on a previously acquired heritage literacy, but as an indication that previous knowledge and experiences modulate the forms of reception and participation. At the same time, it highlights the responsibility of the exhibition and its mediation devices to generate interpretive supports accessible to visitors with diverse cultural backgrounds. In this study, heritage literacy is understood as a dimension that influences visitors’ forms of interpretation and participation, but a causal relationship is not claimed in a statistical sense; rather, heritage literacy is treated as an interpretive dimension. The differences observed suggest that previous knowledge and experiences can facilitate the appropriation of heritage content, while exhibition mediation can expand, activate, and develop these capacities during the visiting experience itself [75,76].

4.4. Implications for Teacher Education

The four didactic axes identified in the educational proposals of the groups show that students of the master’s degree in research in specific didactics are able to transcend the immediate aesthetic experience to formulate complex questions about learning, memory, mediation and participation. This result coincides with studies that underline the potential of museum environments, including virtual ones, to promote critical thinking, interpretive observation and collaborative construction of meaning when the experience is accompanied by appropriate reflective strategies [73]. From the field of art education, this allows immersive exhibitions to be interpreted as laboratories of didactic thought that are particularly valuable for teacher training, if the visit does not close in technological fascination and is prolonged in spaces for dialogue, analysis and pedagogical reworking.

In the broader framework of teacher training, the study suggests that this type of experience can contribute to the development of competencies to design interdisciplinary proposals that articulate heritage, visual culture, digital technologies and educational research. In addition, the results indicate that immersive exposure should not be understood only as a resource for methodological innovation, but as an opportunity to test forms of critical mediation that prepare future teachers to read and problematize contemporary cultural devices from an educational perspective [39,73]. The incorporation of heritage education into teacher training remains relevant, but it should not be presented as the sole remedy for, or compensation for, perceived shortcomings among audiences. The results also point to the need to strengthen the competencies of museologists, museographers, museum educators and designers of digital experiences to create devices capable of activating heritage literacy processes during the visit. In this way, the exhibition does not presuppose a fully developed heritage competence, but rather contributes to building it through accessible, plural, participatory resources that are sensitive to the diversity of experiences and knowledge.

Taken together, the findings support the initial propositions and allow them to be interpreted within a broader framework in which art education, heritage education, museum mediation, and digital culture converge. On the one hand, technological immersion has pedagogical potential when it is coherently integrated into the narrative and linked to meaningful mediation. On the other hand, the educational experience also depends on affective, epistemic, and formative variables, including vicarious nostalgia, the plurality of voices, and heritage literacy. This combination of factors broadens the understanding of immersive exhibitions as complex learning spaces, in which technology acts as a mediator, but never as an autonomous guarantee of critical understanding [39,72,73].

The implications of the study are relevant in the museum, educational and cultural spheres. From a museological perspective, the results support the need to design immersive exhibitions that avoid empty spectacularization and embrace plural, pedagogically mediated narratives. From heritage education, they underline the importance of considering the link between emotion, memory and critical interpretation. From the perspective of teacher education, they show that technology-based centers and exhibitions can serve as valuable settings for investigating how learning is constructed in hybrid, sensory, and socially situated contexts [39,76] (Table 5).

Table 5. Relationship between the dimensions, the theoretical contributions and their contents.

Dimensions	Authors (Year)	Main Contents
Immersive Technology and Critical Learning	Hooper-Greenhill [39]; Parry [72]	It analyzes the relationship between immersive devices, pedagogical mediation and the construction of critical learning; warns of the risk of technological spectacularization when the digital resource is disconnected from the exhibition narrative.
Vicarious nostalgia as heritage learning	Boym [1]; Babic & Miklosevic [74]; Santini et al., [77]	It examines nostalgia for unlived experiences as an intergenerational bridge and as an affective mechanism to activate historical empathy, cultural memory, and understanding of recent heritage.
Narrative silences and epistemic justice	Smith [65]; Sandell [78]; Fricker [62]; Lynch [79]	It studies the absence of subaltern voices in the museographic narrative, the unequal legitimization of memories and the need to incorporate plural perspectives from critical museology and epistemic justice.
Heritage literacy as an interpretative dimension	Rumsey [76]; Babic & Miklosevic [74]; Bhatt [75]	It defines heritage literacy as the ability to recognize, interpret and critically analyze the layers of meaning of a space, articulating tangible and intangible heritage, memory and social context.
Teacher training and immersive exhibitions	Marín-Viadel & Roldán [51]; Pitonakova & Augustínová [80]; Silina-Jasjukevica & Rancane [81]	It approaches immersive exhibitions as laboratories of didactic thinking, useful for developing critical observation, design of educational proposals and research in didactics of the visual arts.
General discussion and implications	Hooper-Greenhill [39]; Parry [72]; Smith [65]	It integrates findings on technology, memory, mediation and heritage to interpret their implications in the museum, educational and cultural fields.
Lines of future research	Bhatt [75]; Parry [72]; UNESCO [46]	It proposes comparative studies on participation, digital mediation, heritage literacy and the design of inclusive immersive experiences in educational and museum contexts.

Table 5. Relationship between the dimensions, the theoretical contributions and their contents.

Dimensions	Authors (Year)	Main Contents
Immersive Technology and Critical Learning	Hooper-Greenhill [39]; Parry [72]	It analyzes the relationship between immersive devices, pedagogical mediation and the construction of critical learning; warns of the risk of technological spectacularization when the digital resource is disconnected from the exhibition narrative.
Vicarious nostalgia as heritage learning	Boym [1]; Babic & Miklosevic [74]; Santini et al., [77]	It examines nostalgia for unlived experiences as an intergenerational bridge and as an affective mechanism to activate historical empathy, cultural memory, and understanding of recent heritage.
Narrative silences and epistemic justice	Smith [65]; Sandell [78]; Fricker [62]; Lynch [79]	It studies the absence of subaltern voices in the museographic narrative, the unequal legitimization of memories and the need to incorporate plural perspectives from critical museology and epistemic justice.
Heritage literacy as an interpretative dimension	Rumsey [76]; Babic & Miklosevic [74]; Bhatt [75]	It defines heritage literacy as the ability to recognize, interpret and critically analyze the layers of meaning of a space, articulating tangible and intangible heritage, memory and social context.
Teacher training and immersive exhibitions	Marín-Viadel & Roldán [51]; Pitonakova & Augustínová [80]; Silina-Jasjukevica & Rancane [81]	It approaches immersive exhibitions as laboratories of didactic thinking, useful for developing critical observation, design of educational proposals and research in didactics of the visual arts.
General discussion and implications	Hooper-Greenhill [39]; Parry [72]; Smith [65]	It integrates findings on technology, memory, mediation and heritage to interpret their implications in the museum, educational and cultural fields.
Lines of future research	Bhatt [75]; Parry [72]; UNESCO [46]	It proposes comparative studies on participation, digital mediation, heritage literacy and the design of inclusive immersive experiences in educational and museum contexts.

5. Conclusions

The theoretical framework reviewed in this study supports three main conclusions. First, that art and heritage education today shares a common basis focused on experience, mediation and the construction of meaning, both in face-to-face and digital contexts [53,82,83]. Second, digitalization does not replace these principles; rather, it reconfigures and complicates them by adding layers of data, interaction, algorithms, and the transnational circulation of cultural content [72,84]. Third, digital art centers can serve as valuable laboratories for exploring participatory and interdisciplinary forms of learning consistent with UNESCO’s international framework on culture, education, and emerging technologies [40]. The findings point to the potential of hybrid museum environments to favor processes linked to heritage literacy, particularly in relation to the critical interpretation of narratives, the identification of absent voices, and the reflexive construction of meanings about heritage.

Digital art centers can offer relevant contexts for participatory and interdisciplinary learning, if their mediation devices do not presuppose a homogeneous level of cultural or heritage competence. Their educational potential lies not only in the incorporation of immersive technologies, but in the ability to design accessible experiences that recognise the diversity of visitor trajectories and promote processes of interpretation, dialogue and shared construction of meaning. Therefore, these spaces should be understood as possible laboratories of heritage literacy, but also as environments in which it is necessary to critically analyze the forms of inclusion, exclusion and participation they produce.

The findings from the research conducted at Bombas Gens in Valencia, Spain, should be interpreted with nuance in light of the reflections of 30 professionals in the visual arts, education, and visual culture. These findings provide partial and context-specific support for the following arguments:

• Technological immersion works as a catalyst, not a substitute

Immersive technologies—360-degree VR, projection mapping, and surround sound—can catalyze heritage learning when they are thematically linked to the content and generate a bodily experience coherent with the phenomenon represented. When they operate in a disconnected manner, they may generate rejection or superficial engagement. This conclusion implies that immersive museum design must always be subjected to a prior pedagogical question: what understanding, questioning or memory does each technological resource aim to activate?

• Vicarious nostalgia as a tool for intergenerational heritage education

This interpretation should be understood as an analytical construction derived from the dialogue between the empirical data and the theoretical framework, and not as a category expressly formulated by the participants. The main original contribution of this study is to identify and develop the role of vicarious nostalgia in the reception of an immersive exhibition on a recent, controversial and partially intangible heritage. The discourses analyzed show that the images, narratives and atmospheres of the exhibition can activate memories not directly lived, but reconstructed through family stories, cultural references, collective imaginaries and historical knowledge. This form of relationship with the past favors emotional involvement and can contribute to the construction of memorable heritage experiences, although its intensity and meaning depend on the cultural trajectories and interpretative frameworks of each participant.

• The narrative silences shape the story as much as the voices present

The unanimous convergence of the 6 groups in the identification of absences—public, workers, neighbors, LGTBI collective, negative consequences—reveals that professionals from the visual arts, education and visual culture actively question institutional narrative frameworks. For educational museology, this implies that the inclusion of plural testimonies and counter-hegemonic perspectives is not an optional complement, but a condition of credibility of heritage history.

• Heritage literacy determines the depth of reading of space

The ability to perceive the dialogue between tangible heritage (Art Deco factory) and intangible heritage (culture of La Ruta) varies significantly between groups, being associated with the level of heritage literacy and previous training in visual culture. This reinforces the need to integrate heritage education in a transversal way in teacher training programs.

• Immersive exhibitions as didactic research laboratories

The post-visit focus groups functioned not only as a research technique but also as a formative device: by debating collectively, participants constructed more complex interpretations than they might have individually, developed critical thinking, and formulated transferable educational proposals. This dual function—research and training—positions the focus group as a valuable tool in research on the didactics of the visual arts. Immersion as a means, not as an end.

First, the results suggest that immersive experiences favor processes of sensory involvement and construction of meaning, although their valuation depends on the trajectories, expectations and interests of the participants.

Secondly, the discourses analyzed reflect a tension between the educational potential of immersion and the risk that certain resources are perceived as predominantly spectacular or decorative, which raises questions about the balance between aesthetic experience and critical construction of knowledge.

Thirdly, the identification of absent narratives highlights the participants’ ability to problematize the processes of selection and representation present in heritage discourses. However, these findings concern participants’ reception of the exhibition, not the direct experiences of the groups identified as absent from its narrative.

Consequently, the study offers an interpretive approach to the educational experience developed in a hybrid museum, providing evidence on the ways in which visitors negotiate meanings, value immersive resources, and identify narrative inclusions and exclusions in digital heritage contexts.

Future lines and limitations

Future research could explore at least four lines of inquiry. First, comparative studies of different immersive exhibitions would help analyze how the relationship between technology, narrative content, and learning varies across heritage contexts. Second, vicarious nostalgia should be examined in greater depth as a mechanism of affective mediation, particularly among audiences of different ages and cultural backgrounds. Third, research should investigate participatory methodologies that effectively incorporate the voices of audiences, workers, and local communities in order to reduce narrative silences and advance epistemic justice in exhibition narratives. The exclusion of certain voices from the exhibition narrative relates to institutional decisions about which narratives, agents, and forms of knowledge become visible. However, exclusion can also occur when mediation devices do not offer sufficient supports for visitors with different cultural backgrounds to interpret, question, and relate the contents presented to their own frames of reference. In this sense, interpretive accessibility is a responsibility of the institutions and teams that conceive, design and develop the exhibitions. Finally, further research should systematically examine how heritage literacy can be taught, assessed, and strengthened in teacher-education programs and digitally supported museum experiences, in line with international debates on educational innovation, digital competence, and the future of learning promoted by UNESCO [85].

The main limitation of the study is its focus on a single case within one country and a specific sociocultural context. The value of the study lies in offering a contextualized interpretation of the critical reception of an immersive experience and in proposing analytical categories that can be examined in future research using more diverse samples, other heritage contexts, and comparative designs.