storytelling – Antonia Liguori / Participatory Storytelling

“Caravan of Civilizational Tales” and the Power of Connective Imagination

I had the privilege of contributing the Foreword to “Caravan of Civilizational Tales”, a peace-centred anthology conceived and curated by Melika Tabrizi, founder of the Silky Land Storytelling Institute. A writer, storyteller, playwright and tireless champion of peace-making, Tabrizi has brought together voices from multiple countries in a project inspired by Iran’s historic caravanserais, transforming these ancient spaces of encounter into a contemporary dialogue about culture, connection and peace. The book was officially launched in Tehran on the International Day of Peace.

While writing the Foreword, I found myself reflecting on what storytelling can offer in a world increasingly shaped by division, conflict and uncertainty. This led me to explore the definition of the process of storytelling as social act of “connective imagination“. Not just “collective” through the telling-listening loop, but “connective” as a driver for social justice.

By connective imagination, I mean our ability to engage with lives, experiences and perspectives beyond our own. The ability not only to understand, but also to feel and see thorugh someone else’s heart and eyes, even where we perceive ‘distance’. Stories allow us to travel across cultural, linguistic and geographical boundaries, not by erasing difference but by creating opportunities to encounter it. Through storytelling, we are invited to listen, reflect and imagine relationships that extend beyond the limits of our immediate experience.

Remembering Antonio Pennacchi: Storytelling, Disruption and the Courage to Hold Many Voices

Yesterday, Pietro Antonelli and I returned to our hometown of Latina to take part in an event celebrating the life and legacy of Antonio Pennacchi, organised by Marco Ragonese, Graziano Lanzidei and “L’Associazione Amici di Antonio Pennacchi” and presented by Daniela Novelli. It was much more than a commemorative occasion. It was an opportunity to revisit a chapter of our lives and to remember a remarkable writer before he became one of Italy’s most celebrated literary voices.

Today, Antonio is rightly remembered as the winner of the prestigious Premio Strega for Canale Mussolini and as one of the writers who most profoundly explored the complexities of Italy’s twentieth-century history. Yet our memories go back to a different time, when his extraordinary talent was already unmistakable but had not yet reached the wider public.

Pietro Antonelli remembering Antonio Pennachi’s years at “La Piazza”

Those years were formative for many of us.

Pietro, then Founder and Editor-in-Chief of La Piazza and later Il Settimanale di Latina, recognised Antonio’s distinctive voice and invited him to collaborate with the newspaper. Between 1999 and 2001, Antonio worked with us as part of his journalistic practice, eventually obtaining his membership of the Ordine Nazionale dei Giornalisti. Long before literary prizes and national recognition, he was already writing with the uncompromising honesty and intellectual courage that would later define his novels.

Looking back, however, I realise that Antonio’s story cannot be separated from another story: that of La Piazza itself.

“The Uninvited Guest”: Storytelling, Lived Experience, and Public Engagement with Persistent Pain

We’re excited to announce “The Uninvited Guest,” an innovative theatre performance that brings the lived experience of persistent pain into focus. Through a vibrant blend of comedy and storytelling, the production invites audiences to reflect on the realities of chronic pain – often invisible, always impactful.

Co-created by Theatre Space North East with Flippin’ Pain, Teesside University’s research team, and community members, and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Acceleration Account at Teesside University, “The Uninvited Guest” exemplifies how the arts and research can come together to deepen public understanding of health. By weaving together personal stories, academic research, and creative interpretation, this performance sheds new light on the personal, social, and emotional effects of chronic pain, challenging myths and opening up space for empathy and dialogue.

The Art of Cultural Fluency: Exploring Digital Storytelling as a ‘Translational’ tool

The video recording of my talk part of ‘The Art of Cultural Fluency’ event hosted by The 7th Bridge – a network of cultural heritage professionals based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – is now available on LinkedIn (from 6’10”) via the link below:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/theartofculturalfluency7240688618904682497/theater/

HPCA Storytelling Community Webinar -The benefits of the story-telling/story-listening loop within participatory research

I am delighted to join the Healthcare Project and Change Association – HPCA for the november webinar with a talk on “The benefits of the story-telling/story-listening loop within participatory research: exploring diverse experiences and methods for the co-production of knowledge”.

Please read the abstract below and register to this event via this link.

Storytelling has been defined as ‘the artform of social interaction’ (Wilson, 2021), not only for its inner dynamics, but also for its power to unlock grass-roots knowledge, explore dilemmas, develop community resilience, and engender change. In a time when academia and cultural institutions are being challenged to encourage broader engagement with diverse knowledges, practices that support shared knowledge and co-creation become important. Stories can generate empathy and trust among diverse communities and audiences and at the same time demonstrate their usefulness due to their power to give meaning to human behaviours and to trigger emotions (Bourbonnais and Michaud, 2018).

In this talk we acknowledge the existence of multiple truths when we recognise, as the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie observes, ‘the danger of a single story’ (2009). As she describes, ‘because our lives and our cultures are composed of a series of overlapping stories, if we hear only a single story about another person, culture, or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding’. 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?