Three members of our team, Roza Tsagarousianou, Federico Faloppa, and Federica Mazarra, participated in a day-long workshop and exhibition entitled The Shelter of Stories: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling that took place in Compton Verney (comptonverney.org.uk).
The purpose of the workshop was to explore the interactions between storytelling and belonging. Passing on stories from person to person and from generation to generation, making them up, and sharing them can foster feelings of safety and home. At a time when wars, climate change, and various forms of intolerance and exclusion are causing mass displacements, the workshop engaged with storytelling as a form of belonging and resistance. There is no culture in the world without stories, and they have travelled – and still travel – across barriers of faith, ethnicity, and language. Stories are mobile, and we carry them with us as we move, in our minds, in our oral or written histories, and in the objects we carry with us.
Through a wide variety of artists’ works from different periods and cultures the workshop engaged participants with questions such as: Can stories offer refuge? Can they help heal the fractures and lessen the experience of dislocation? Can a common store of the imagination offer a form of sanctuary?
The workshop and exhibition were organised with the support of Prof. Marina Warner and several Civil society organisations that work with refugees and asylum seekers. The exhibition was curated by Prof. Marina Warner, Oli McCall, and Roger Malbert and was intended to bring together historic artifacts to explore the art of storytelling. The workshop was organised and run by Giocherenda, a refugee-created and run NGO, and intended to bring different audiences together to explore the value of storytelling for building solidarity between communities. By bringing together an array of objects and works of art both ancient and modern The Shelter of Stories asked Why tell stories? What are stories for? and explored three interwoven purposes: to know the worst and placate the powers that govern fate; to live with nature and secure the survival of the earth and humanity's existence; and to pass on knowledge and wisdom.
In the contemporary global turmoil, storytelling offers ways of being at home in the world. Narrating the past, the present and one’s hopes for the future amounts to witnessing history, reflecting on the experience of estrangement and seeking to form a new sense of arrival, and of sanctuary. Even as stories tell of grief and suffering, they strengthen and console, however unlikely a happy ending may be.
Giocherenda has developed several word games for the purpose of shifting the language on migration, and some of these word games were used to explore connections and solidarities between people from different backgrounds. Our team participated in the workshop both to learn and to establish links with Giocherenda, and to also initiate links with other organisations that were present.
Read more about the exhibition here: https://www.comptonverney.org.uk/whats-on/the-shelter-of-stories/
