Story walking
A workshop for the 'Let Nature Feed Your Senses' conference by Phil Waters from the Eden Project.
The workshop used narrative as a means of deepening the engagement of participants with their environment and each other. It took the form of a collaborative story walk.
Do you have a special place? A place you used to go to as a kid?
I suspect you had a name for that place. I did, it was a tree called the ‘Cow Tree’, only because it was the easiest tree to climb when you were being chased by cows – my best mate was petrified of cows. Children are natural story tellers; narrating environments as they play; telling tales about the landscape and finding objects that have story potential – like the Cow Tree.
Narrative can be used to connect people of all ages to their environments. It’s a playful workshop, interactive, fun, and funny, where anything is possible – like most good stories I guess. You’ll go away energised, probably laughing, and with a story that you create with others, while playing outside. You’ll go on a quest, collect things, tell others about those things, where you’ve been, and the magical beings and places you’ve encountered. Honestly, people who have done this workshop before have fought dragons, shaken hands with leprechauns, talked with trees.
The workshop group were each invited to create a persona for themselves and choose a “superpower”. They then stepped through a “magic portal” and began a journey that involved using found objects to help construct a narrative. They went out onto Fleet Street with their small jute bags (some looking sceptical!) for collecting their ‘special’ things, back they came with leaves and twigs but also ladders, a bicycle wheel , odd bits of plastic, and other unexpected finds. The stories that unfolded where rich and very lateral in the way the disparate objects became integral to the fantasy of the story. Everyone was surprised at how rich an activity it became and how much fun.
The workshop enabled the participants to go beyond the initial feelings that perhaps play is only for children. Children (and adults) need only permission in order to play, they play unconsciously and naturally. There is no need for expensive “play equipment”. Children see actions in objects, for instance a tree is an object to be climbed, hidden behind, hugged or sheltered under. Keep things simple, collect objects, put them together and allow our natural ability to play and create meaning through story to take over.
There are no laws in a story walk and anything can, and should, be possible. It’s make-believe play.
I bet you’re curious, now, aren’t you?
Storytelling
Stories connect us with place and with each other and help us make sense of the world around us. They can transport us to times before we were born, give us a glimpse of our future selves, strengthen old memories and make new ones.
Stories lurk in everyone, young and old, and in all kinds of places - archives, libraries, cemeteries, village halls, bus stops, farm names, local historians, town gossips, snapshots, old photographs, conversations.
This workshop takes a practical look at how stories help connect people with nature and farming. Through some exemplary project examples, we will look at the key how-to’s… finding the stories, creating a receptive environment, representing them and making the most of the resources you have.
Merecedes Kemp, WildWorks