Telling Stories - UnMuseum Culture & Heritage Programme
On Tuesday the 22nd of November 2022 we held the third event in our UnMuseum Culture & Heritage Programme series. This event ‘Telling Stories,’ included a very rich conversation between audience members and panellists about how the UnMuseum space will look and how its content will be presented. This deep discussion also covered how stories in an UnMuseum space should represent the hidden/excluded stories of Black and Minoritised communities.
Image of the panel from left to right Stuart Taylor, Orsod Malik, Michael Jenkins, and Arathi Sriprakash.
As part of the introduction, Angelique Retief, Senior Policy Officer, explained the purpose of the UnMuseum events and how storytelling is an essential part of this. We were welcomed into this engaging discussion by our facilitator Stuart Taylor, Decolonial Scholar, and Activist who created a ‘safe circle’ space to discuss stories as light, glue, and web (Ella Saltmarshe, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2018).
The panel consisted of Orsod Malik (Code Switch), Michael Jenkins (Blak Wave), and Arathi Sriprakash (University of Bristol).
Image of Michael Jenkins talking about his journey of storytelling as a writer, producer and director.
The panellists then each spoke about their experiences of storytelling. Michael Jenkins spoke about his background of hearing stories from the bible, coming from the Caribbean community, and applying for some funding through the Prince’s Trust. He heard a story about a Black soldier and it got him thinking about how communities think about film and untold stories. He continued to talk about mythologies, how stories are told, and how this is the glue that holds society and people together. His mission is to revive mythologies from Afro-Caribbean communities.
Image of Arathi Sriprakash, Sociologist of Education at the University of Bristol talks about about her journey of storytelling.
Arathi Sriprakash discussed how we can be positioned in stories and her work on the storytelling of aboriginal communities in the Australian context. She continued with how indigenous people have always told stories and how we need to understand the purpose of storytelling and think about how we listen to those stories. The conversation continued with how stories give us access to different cultures and lived experiences.
Image of Orsod Malik discusses identity and storytelling.
Orsod Malik spoke about his story of identity, growing up in Cairo, coming to the UK, and being labelled as Black. He continued how he had some deep-rooted issues culturally, understanding racism, and fluidity of identity. He continued to talk about bringing something forward that isn’t in view – a story is that we are all related and they are all interwoven and entangled in each other.
Image taken during questions and discussions with the audience.
Together, the panellists and attendees shared their journeys, heritage, thoughts, and feelings regarding storytelling and the UnMuseum space. The discussion delved into the connection and meaning within the diasporic communities, connective threads, dynamic cultures, and self-care when producing work around storytelling to enable the separation of emotion and trauma.
There was no shortage of connection, stimulation, or shared experiences throughout the discussion which revealed four key themes:
Storytelling is connection
Storytelling is understanding
Storytelling is power
Storytelling is healing
We look forward to our next UnMuseum event, ‘I Am Witness: The Role of Testimony in the Reparatory Justice Process,’ facilitated by Jendayi Serwah, Reparations Activist. Sign up for this free event here.
All UnMuseum events are filmed and will be accessible and available online soon.