Category: news

The video-recording of the HPCA’s Storytelling Community Webinar is now online

The benefits of the story-telling/story-listening loop within participatory research: Exploring diverse experiences and methods for the co-production of knowledge.

In a time of worrying ‘critical misunderstandings’ worldwide, this talk – linked to the soon to be published by Smithsonian Scholarly Press open access book ‘Story Work for A Just Future’ edited by Antonia Liguori, Philippa Rappoport, Daniela Gachago – explores the value of co-created “Story work”.

In particular, we will focus on how different storytelling approaches could blur boundaries and expand opportunities for collaborative research, while proposing mutual learning and co-creation of knowledge as a way forward to improve our society. Key questions prompted by this talk are:

• How do we make the digital storytelling practice further expand globally in a way that is both locally-tailored-led-owned, but also coherent with the original ethos?

• Is co-creation an infallible antidote to exclusion and marginalization?

• Can we determine when digital storytelling ends and a new practice starts, if they are based on the same ethos?

Being Human Festival in Middlesbrough: Bridging Past and Future through Digital Storytelling

On Monday the 28th of October from 12:00 to 14:30 we will meet at the Transporte Bridge Visitor Centre in Middlesbrough and we’ll experiment with collective story-listening to interpret and showcase stories of this iconinc local landmark.

In this pre-Being Human Festival event, we draw inspiration from this still impressive bridge that has been a prominent feature of the Middlesbrough skyline since 1911 and a place for memories and encounters. Reflecting on the bridge’s symbolic significance and historical importance, participants will engage in small group storyboarding sessions to capture memories of the past and envision the region’s future.

You can register to this event on the Beign Human Hub page via this link.

Guided by Antonia Liguori and Sally Blackburn-Daniels, participants will collaboratively create an imaginative timeline, which will be featured in a public exhibition and celebration at the Transporter Bridge Visitor Centre on Saturday, the 16th of November.

This event is part of the Teesside University Being Human Festival Hub.

We, The Story: 1st International Digital Storytelling Festival – Zakynthos 2024

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.

You can dowload the announcement from the Festival website.

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’.

The official and warm welcome from Teesside University: “Meet Professor Antonia Liguori”

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.

You can read the post on the University website via this link: https://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/news/pressreleases_story.cfm?story_id=8500

And you can see my research profile here: https://research.tees.ac.uk/en/persons/antonia-liguori

Interactive workshop in Sydney: The role of place-based participatory storytelling to explore contested stories

Thursday 28 March, 11am – 1pm, I’ll be facilitating an interactive participatory storytelling workshop at Western Sydney University, School of Humanities & Communication Arts and Writing & Society Research Centre, Parramatta City Campus, Level 7, Rm PC.1.7.78

Antonia Liguori with Alison Barnes at Western Sydney University

Please, join us if you are in the area!
You can read more information here.

Storytelling helps us unfold the ‘bricolage of the here’ and explore the ‘mess’ of human interactions in a specific place. Stories emerge from individual memories and build shared knowledges. As they convey values and emotions, they are very effective in revealing the differences and similarities between people’s experiences (East, Leah et al. 2010). When those experiences are linked to a particular context, stories become a magnifier of people’s sense of place.

This interactive workshop aims at introducing the concept of place-based participatory storytelling and at exploring how to adapt the 5-step Digital Storytelling model to co-create alternative narratives prompted by the places experienced in our everyday life.


The activity will last 2 hours and will include:
– An exploration of various theories and practices within participatory storytelling
– A presentation of StoryCenter Digital Storytelling model
– A reflection of the effectiveness of creative disruptions to the
conventional model
– A collaborative storyboarding activity
– A collective reflection on the use of storytelling techniques to magnify people’s sense of place.

You can book your place via this link:

https://events.humanitix.com/participatory-storytelling-workshop