About the Project
Yet many stories remain ignored or silenced, and they often divide us, in part because there is so little interchange among approaches to storytelling rooted in diverse cultures and histories. Recent debates have moved storytelling to the forefront of the public imagination. Controversies over which monuments should stand in public spaces or flags fly over public buildings ultimately center on which stories should have public authority, often to the exclusion of others. Meanwhile, the advent of digital technology has enhanced the power of stories to reach broad audiences and to serve exclusion or inclusion, privilege or social justice, while the costs and technical demands involved in digital storytelling have created new inequities and barriers alongside preexisting ones. At a time when racial tensions and the pandemic exposed anew the inequities within our society, the project was created to respond by investing in new and equitable ways to engage in the art of storytelling.
A COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING PROJECT
The Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas, in partnership with KU’s Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities, was awarded a three-year grant in 2021 by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a collaborative digital storytelling project that brings together over forty community and KU partners to recover marginalized and suppressed histories, and share them widely through digital media. The project addressed the opportunities, challenges, ethics and politics of storytelling in the digital era. And it asked how different stories and storytelling strategies can help to connect rather than divide us if we have better ways to share them across existing and perceived boundaries.
A WIDE RANGE OF STORYTELLING PROJECTS
Stories for All brought into conversation digital projects that represent a wide range of traditions, histories, and goals. The partners ranged from small collectives preserving local histories to institutions known for working at the intersection of the humanities and social change. They used a variety of storytelling strategies, including oral histories, social media posts, online writing contests, videos, blogs, interactive maps, long-form documentaries, online companions, art installations and place-based storytelling. The stories were local, regional, and global in scope.
The Stories for All website serves as a portal linking visitors to externally hosted partner websites that tell a wide range of stories and use different storytelling techniques. The diversity that characterizes our partner projects extends to our technical infrastructures. Bringing partners together in a common space through the use of a portal avoids compromising autonomy or diversity of approach. Through workshops and individual consultations, we narrowed the digital divide that has added a new layer to pre-existing inequities. Many of these stories run the risk of disappearing because of the digital technologies being used or due to lack of funding; one of our goals was to explore how to make these stories sustainable in a digital age.
FOSTERING DIALOGUE BETWEEN STORYTELLING COMMUNITIES
The project centered on a multi-year forum that brought together partners to share their diverse storytelling traditions and the ways they have adapted their approaches to storytelling for a digital age. These conversations took place in locations throughout Lawrence and the region to foster an expansive storytelling community. Forum events provided opportunities for partners to present their own projects and approaches to storytelling; to discuss the ways in which these different approaches might learn from each other; to address the particular opportunities and challenges posed by digital storytelling; and to consider the broad implications of these conversations for storytelling as a facet of human expression.
RECORD OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
Stories for All aimed at diversifying literature by highlighting underrepresented voices and experiences. Ultimately, it broadened the storytelling landscape and provided a platform for marginalized voices to be heard, contributing to a more equitable and representative world.