At the end of May I was invited by SART – Siena Art Institute to join their team and co-design/facilitate storytelling workshops to explore with young people their ‘connection’ with the places where they live.
We have used and adapted a series of participatory techniques to re-imagine youth engagament in regional future planning.
You can see below a few images taken during our first workshop in Montalcino.
And here a short video that we recorded on the way to explain in a few words how storytelling can be applied as a platform for social dialougue and mutual learning.
The University of Otago, New Zealand, just published on their YouTube channel the video recording of one of the seminars I gave during my visit in April.
Seminar hosted by the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand, April 2024
You can read the abstract of the presentation here:
The benefits of the story-telling/story-listening loop within participatory research
Participatory storytelling is an enriching and powerful research approach that enables the researcher and the participant to shift power dynamics and establish new ways of working to achieve (together!) more meaningful and long-lasting results. Storytelling is an effective way for people to connect, share knowledge, and generate change. Even more when the story-telling/story-listening loop is prioritised during this creative process. As our world becomes more diverse, it is crucial for academia and cultural institutions to promote engagement with different perspectives. Stories have a unique power to build empathy, trust, and understanding among communities. However, it is important to recognise that there isn’t just one truth or perspective. Like Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says, “relying on a single story can risk a critical misunderstanding”.
In this seminar, we’ll explore the concept of co-created “Story Work” and how it involves collaborating to create stories that reflect diverse experiences and truths. We’ll also look at how storytelling can be used in research to foster engagement and inform practice and policy.
This seminar aims to address these questions:
How can digital storytelling be adapted globally while staying true to local values?
Is collaborative storytelling a solution to exclusion and marginalisation?
How do we differentiate between different storytelling practices while maintaining their ethos and core principles?
The submission deadline has been extended until the 15th of May.
As a member of the organising committee, I am delighted to share the official announcement of the 1st International Digital Storytelling Festival, hosted in Zakynthos, Greece, from the 27th to the 29th of September 2024.
With the aim of raising discussions about important themes affecting us all, we invite digital storytellers to take part in this festival and to submit stories in relation to the following themes:
Culture
Education
Environment
Health
Science and Research
Society
Ten digital stories will be selected for each theme to be screened during the Festival. These stories will be selected by the relevant Festival Committee (an international team including Digital Storytelling experts, Theme experts, and Artists) using the principles of inclusion regarding age, gender, geographical region, and language. Moreover, the relevant Festival Committee for each theme will select a representative focal digital story to be screened at the end of the festival to attract attention to a global issue in relation to the theme. This story will also be granted the Festival Award for this theme. During the Festival, the screening of these stories will be accompanied by a theme-focussed discussion panel.
I will be part of the jury for the theme ‘Environment’.
I recently joined Teesside University, in the UK, as Professor of Participatory Storytelling and Public Policy and the wonderful Comms Team just created this great video to summarise my research.
Thrilled to be in Wellington, New Zealand, for a series of storytelling seminars hosted by Otago University and to finally meet in person the brilliant Dr Hemakumar Devan and his colleagues to learn more about their inspiring work on the HRC Whānau opioid stories project, exploring the use of participatory storytelling for a more “holistic” and culturally appropriate approach to chronic pain.
Antonia Liguori / Participatory Storytelling 