Case Studies in Arts, Culture, & History

Alternate Roots
Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.
In 2005 and 2006, the Center was invited to lead digital storytelling workshops at annual members’ meetings of the thirty-three-year-old community arts network Alternate Roots. The Network, which evolved out of a multi-racial theater community in the Southern United States, is actively engaged in the integration of social justice agendas and community-based arts practices. While the Center had sustained a twenty-year relationship with the Network, these were the first opportunities for Alternate Roots members to learn digital storytelling methods and approaches.

Art Center College of Design
Pasadena/San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
In 2000, CDS was invited by Brenda Laurel, the newly appointed Chair of the Graduate Media Design program at Art Center to hold a workshop as an icebreaker for the incoming Graduate students. The workshop became a central touchstone for each year's students, a way for them to reflect on their entry into the program, and a grounding in personal narrative that informed their explorations in state-of-the-art media design. Brenda brought the program to Art Center in 2007 when she became the Chair of the Graduate Design Program.

Carpet Bag Theater
Knoxville, TN, U.S.A.
In 2006, as a result of the Center’s collaborate with Alternate Roots (see above), the Carpetbag Theater, one of the Roots’ community’s founding members, invited the Center to collaborate on a digital storytelling project in Knoxville. Based in the city’s African American community, this effort was integrated with Carpetbag’s thirty-year retrospective, the Sankofa Project. Training by the Center enabled Carpetbag to hold several workshops in the area, documenting stories that address both historical and contemporary issues within the community.

The Colorado History Museum
http://milehighstories.com/?cat=4
Denver, CO, U.S.A.
In 2007 and 2008, the Center worked with the Mile High Stories team and the Colorado Historical Society to run workshops in support of two exhibitions at the Museum. The first session was connected with “The Italians of Denver,” and the second with “Denver: Imagine a Great City.” The workshops were run with one-on-one helpers, as a way of including participants who weren’t interested in learning production skills. The stories explore cultural and linguistic heritage, as well as people’s connections to place, family traditions, and the enduring legacies of immigration. By enabling local residents to contribute to the narratives of history, the project is changing public notions about how history should be defined and who should author it. The museum is planning to include digital stories in its exhibitions on a regular basis.

The Container Project
http://containerproject.net
Palmer’s Cross, Clarendon, Jamaica
The Container Project is a community media lab in a forty-foot shipping container in a rural neighborhood in Jamaica, where few employment opportunities exist. In 2008, the Center participated in a residency program called “As We Move: stories across Jamaica.” During a five-week residency, stories were gathered at three locations across Jamaica: Negril, Caenwood Road, and Palmer’s Cross, hometown of the Container. The project exists at the forefront of bringing new media to Jamaica, offering digital storytelling workshops which enable Jamaicans to represent themselves and their communities, on their own terms.

Contando Nuestras Historias/Telling Our Stories
Richmond, CA, U.S.A.
In 2005, the Center collaborated with the Mujeres, Salud y Liderazgo program of the Latina Center to assist East Bay Latinas in creating digital stories about their immigrant experiences and their unique contributions to the greater Bay Area’s Latino community. The stories document participants’ leadership on cultural arts and health promotion activities and are being screened in local churches, community centers, and nonprofit organizations to raise awareness about the struggles and achievements of Latinas.

National Gallery of Art
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
During the summer months from 2003-2005, the Center worked with education staff at the National Gallery of Art to introduce educators from across the country to the use of digital storytelling as a method for prompting student learning about art history and reflection about the nature and role of art in society. Participants created stories that linked their personal life experiences to work housed in the National Gallery’s collections.

Painted Bride
http://paintedbride.org/experience-more/digital-storytelling/
Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
In 2006, the Center teamed up with the Painted Bride Art Center and the Philadelphia Technology Charter School to work with inner-city high school students. The project focused on supporting youth in sharing stories related to violence and other struggles in their local communities. The stories were created in a three-day workshop held at the school and were shown afterwards at a public screening held at Painted Bride.

Stories de la Guerra
Jesi, Italy
In 2002, the Center participated in a ten-month residency in Italy, where a project was developed in partnership with Italy Inteatro and the Muncipality of Jesi. This local history effort captured a dozen stories from elders about their experiences in World War II. These moving stories were developed to commemorate the sixtith anniversary of the liberation of the area from Nazi Occupation.

War and Remembrance
Kansas City, KS, U.S.A.
The Center worked in 2001 with the Kansas City Symphony and Kansas City-based curriculum design company the Learning Exchange, to develop a school program dedicated to exploring issues of war and peace. Students made stories about their perspectives about these issues, which were shown as part of a two-evening concert with work by Shostakovich and Arvo Part. The digital storytelling curriculum was then made part of services offered by the Learning Exchange for their clients in the Kansas City area schools.