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Workshop explorations

There have been workshops in the context of Elephant Paths -project. Workshop participants explore storytelling as a basis for creative work – art. The participants create their own story ideas, the message they want to communicate and choose a medium to present their story. The simple theme of the workshop is that by sharing our stories we can learn from each other. Different kinds of sources of inspiration are explored: memories, myths, associations, dreams, subcultures etc. The location of the workshop (city, village etc.) is explored from different perspectives and it is the main source of inspiration. A starting point is that a location is considered as a three dimensional space: 1.) social space (means of functioning in space), 2.) concrete representation of space (architecture, city planning), 3.) space for representation (spatial experiences, memories, also art).
(Henri Lefebre, "The Production of Space", 1991)

From there, the participants can go as deep or as light they want. Contentwise, the outcomes of the workshops have varied from very personal explorations of everydaylife to tourism or presenting social inequality and everything in between. I believe that everyone is creative, but everyone also need to learn how to use tool of creativity to speak up and express. And when we learn to speak up, critical thinking and look around from different angles, we can be more fully a part of the society no matter what is our world view or in what field we work at. This type of empowerment has been very important expecially when I have been working with Balkan youngsters, where many of them believe that no-one is listening their toughts. But this is as important with any youngsters regardless of their backgrounds.

The workshop participants can explore tools to create all the way from mindmap to a work of art. Outcome of the stories in the workshop can be an installation, performance, text, still images and videos. The outcome can also be the process not “a final product”. Meeting a person and communicating is significant form of art. The workshop and its outcomes will be presented the last day of the workshop and also virtually in the Internet. The aim of the workshop is also to realise that you don’t need to have a lot of materials or technical equipment to create, i.e. found materials can be used in the process.

So far, there have been two workshops, both of them in Bitola, Macedonia. First of them was Location Based Storytelling Workshop in 2005 and second one TAG your place! -workshop in 2006.

The workshop is aimed to participants of all ages and backgrounds, but usually the participants have been youngsters. The trainer of the workshop is Mari Keski-Korsu. To get more info and full agenda of the workshop, please contact me: mkk (at) katastro (dot) fi