Purpose: Interact and build stories together with people in my village.
Target group: The general public.
Result: Two weeks of story building in a bike tunnel.
Client: Part of a university project in a design course at Gothenburg University, at the Academy of Design and Crafts.
On the big scale, my project was about sharing stories and thoughts about basic human dreams, fears, love and hate. It was also about the huge need for public arenas where we can meet and interact with others, to discuss and listening to different voices. It was also about co-operation and sharing – in order to understand our fellow citizens.
My project was an interactive public project, a co-creation between myself and the public. I wanted to understand the people in my village. What are their dreams, fears and thoughts? What stories do they keep inside and what are they willing to express in a public place? Since the project time was restricted to 10 days for the active phase, I had to be careful how I communicated with the participants. Since many families live in the area, and many children pass the tunnel daily, I made a pre-study at a kindergarten nearby.
My purpose was to get an idea about what topics and kind of stories the children in find funny and interesting. Then, I started asking questions – what characters do they identify themselves with, and what is important for them? As the final part of the project, we managed to build coherent stories together, where different people contribute with different parts.
