I have just returned from a trip to Japan where I was speaking at a symposium at Nagoya University. The theme of my talk was ‘Digital Storytelling as a tool for change’, looking at how the creation and dissemination of digital stories of people’s experiences can effect change, raise awareness and highlight issues. The other presentations were all on the theme of the potential for people’s real life stories to influence and foreground the impact that public policy has on our every day lives , and I was struck once again by the power of digital stories to bring often marginalised voices into the public arena. There is something about a short film that uses still images, accompanied by a sustained single voice , that draws an audience into the world of the storyteller in a very compelling way. You can see some examples of what I mean here: http://vimeo.com/storyworksglam/videos/page:3/sort:date
We hope to be able to adopt a digital storytelling approach in some areas of this project and I look forward to working with communities to co-create new stories that tell us something of the way people have lived, are living and maybe will live with energy in the future. We have all experienced shifts in our relationship with energy, and will continue to do so, whether we live in the neon-fuelled futuristic metropolis that is Tokyo, or a former mining village in the Welsh valleys; and through stories we hope to uncover what this shift means to us as we move towards a future that may perhaps no longer see fossil fuel as the central provider of our energy needs.
Everyday Lives 