Developed with young artists in collaboration with (Lo-Def Film Factory), this step-by-step film demonstrates how you can use mobile phones for telling your stories.
A group of the ImaginingOtherwise participants learnt how to make films with their smart phones, including basic green screen techniques using minimal equipment. They worked with artists Amy Wilson and Francois Knoetze who run the Lo-Def Film Factory - an organisation that aims to make film making accessible to everyone. These three short films made at the end of our project by the participants, aim to reflect on the intersection of story-telling, film and politics. In the second video, the group shows us the basics of shooting with your phone. These videos are a culmination of our learning about how to tell meaningful stories through film.
The ImaginingOtherwise crew introduces some of their tasks and experiments using video storytelling to amplify voices and advocate for their communities.
On April 18, twelve trainee teachers, including students from Takeo province and three from the local area, themselves children of former Khmer Rouge, participated in the tour. Preparing for the journey to Anlong Veng, the students from Takeo wondered what they would learn from the visit, and what to expect from the tour. Were the former Khmer Rouge residents living in Anlong Veng be so different in their beliefs, attitudes, and culture? Several students had little familiarity – or belief – in the history of the Khmer Rouge in general.
The April 2018 Peace Tour also marked a particularly important moment within the wider Changing the Story project. While tour participants had previously been assigned research tasks to draft reports on the history and experiences of local residents, the April 2018 tour was the first deployment of participatory film-making methods as a means for students to explore the stories of local residents and former Khmer Rouge. Working in groups of four, the student-teachers were trained in the use of audio-visual equipment ‘on-site’, identifying key themes and questions for their films to explore, before conducting interviews and capturing footage of key sites in the area. The ‘multiplication’ effect of the participatory-film making approach is significant: the trainee-teachers will be able to incorporate their films within their own teaching as they return to their schools.
As part of Changing the Story’s Phase One activities in Cambodia, this critical review and project reflection explores the use of arts within attempts to redress and remember experiences of the Khmer Rouge, with a particular focus on the varying participatory and educational methods employed therein. We necessarily and deliberately employ a broad definition of ‘participation’ in order to sensitise readers to the variety of ways participation has been integrated and mobilised in the work of both state and civil society led initiatives. The critical review then turns to reflect on the work of Changing the Story through our collaboration with the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam). Specifically, we seek to draw lessons from the introduction of participatory filmmaking approaches to DC-Cam’s Anlong Veng Peace Tours initiatives from April to December 2018.
Written by Dr Simon Dancey and Emily Morrison this critical review of the Phase One Colombia project explores what is known about social imaginaries in Colombia in existing literature and how the imaginary affects the practical projects of those working through culture to achieve social and cultural aims (with a focus on young people), analysed through the voices of an investigation interviewing cultural actors from across Colombia.
Written by Alejandro Castillejo Cuellar and investigators Alex Sierra and Juanita Frankey, the following critical review of the Phase 1 Colombia project Tales of the Future: Senses, Creativity and the Arts of Survival in Colombia discusses the need to put forward itinerant methodological proposals centring on testimonial experiences as means of articulating possible futures.
Written by Alejandro Castillejo Cuellar and investigators Alex Sierra and Juanita Frankey, the following critical review of the Phase 1 Colombia project Tales of the Future: Senses, Creativity and the Arts of Survival in Colombia discusses the need to put forward itinerant methodological proposals centring on testimonial experiences as means of articulating possible futures.
As part of Changing the Story's Phase One Activities is Rwanda this critical review and project reflection maps out the work of the project taking place in both public and private spaces in relation to the use of art in fostering peacebuilding in post-genocide Rwanda. The aim of the critical review is to record convergences, synergies and challenges within the Mobile Arts for Peace project (MAP). The critical review is comprised of a youth report, teachers report and an artist report and outlines the methodologies used, as well as the influence and impact of the project on each group.
Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP): Curriculum for music, dance and drama in Rwanda by A Breed, K Dennison, S Nzahabwanayo, K Pells - The Applied Theatre Reader, 2020. This chapter examines the use of interdisciplinary, arts-based approaches to peacebuilding through the Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) project in Rwanda funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund through an overarching project entitled Changing the Story: Building Inclusive Societies with and for Young People in Five Post-Conflict Countries.
Written by Lura Pollozhani and Hajrulla Çeku, this critical review of the Phase One Kosovo project ACT: Arts, Critical Thinking and Active Citizenship will explore the overarching research questions: how does formal and informal civic education affect youth engagement and active citizenship in Kosovo, and does art activism among youth promote more critical levels of engagement?
This article reflects on a series of participatory video projects led by young Cambodians that sought to engage and explore complex ‘perpetrator’ memories with the aim of building dialogue across communities and generations. Working in partnership with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia through 2018, our participatory-video project sought to document the experiences and accounts of former lower level Khmer Rouge community members. We show how participatory video allows and produces interventions on memory that can renegotiate, augment and contest dominant narratives of past violence.
Final project report, 'Environmental activism and Indigenous issues in Cambodia: The role of film-based advocacy with and for young people.'
Funding for this project was provided by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund under the “Follow on funding for impact” scheme. The parent project was Changing the Story.
Final project report, 'Environmental activism and Indigenous issues in Cambodia: The role of film-based advocacy with and for young people.'
Funding for this project was provided by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund under the “Follow on funding for impact” scheme. The parent project was Changing the Story.
This book investigates the power of art to enhance human development and to initiate positive social change for individuals and societies recovering from conflict. Edited by Changing the Story partners Melis Cin and Faith Mkwananzi, the report features contributions from across the CTS network including Aylwyn Walsh, Scott Burnett, Joshua Chikozho, Willard Muntanga, Tendayi Marovah, Laura K. Taylor, Claudia Pineda Marín, Edwin Cubillos, Diego Alfonso, and Nub Raj Bhandari.
This book provides an important guide to the role that arts can play in addressing epistemic injustice and contributing to social justice and human development. As such, it will be of interest to international development and arts practitioners, policy makers, and to students and researchers across participatory arts, youth studies, international development, social justice, and peace and conflict studies.
Academic article. Understandings of childhood and trauma are based on bio-psychological frameworks emanating from the Global North, often at odds with the historical, political, economic, social and cultural contexts in which interventions are enacted, and neglect the diversity of knowledge, experiences and practices.
This paper by Kirrily Pells, Ananda Breed, Chaste Uwihoreye, Eric Ndushanbandi, Matthew Elliot, and Sylvestre Nazahabwana explores these concerns in the context of Rwanda and the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. We reflect on two qualitative case studies: Connective Memories and Mobile Arts for Peace which both used arts-based approaches drawing on the richness of Rwandan cultural forms.
This panel event, part of the Changing the Story: Inside Out and Outside In Festival (Kosovo), brought together the people who contributed to making the school house system during the 1990s in Kosovo, including students that participated in The Making of the Museum of Education project. The websites have been developed through the Making of the Museum of Education project, Changing the Story.
The Making of the Museum of Education: Exploring how museums emerge, the interactions between places, narratives and social actors in the process of excavation and construction of pasts in Kosovo.
Izazov is a Changing the Story Phase 2 ECR project which aims to build the capacity of young change-makers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to further connect with youth civil society networks and to engage Bosnian youth in inclusive civil society activities. Discover the project highlights in this bite size case study.
YouthLead (Colombia) is a participatory arts research project and collaboration between Queen's University Belfast, National Centre for Historical Memory, Konrad
Lorenz University and Gestores de Paz. which addresses two broad research questions.
First, how are young people in Colombia tackling the legacy of violence, and second, how can the arts amplify the voices of young people?
Fragments on Heroes, Artists and Interventions: Challenging Gender Ideology and Provoking Active Citizenship through the Arts in Kosovo is a chapter in the edited book Cooke, P. and Soria-Dolan, I., eds. Participatory Arts in International Development. London: Routledge
"Heritage for Global Challenges” (24-26 February 2020, West Bek’aa, Lebanon) was a three-day workshop organized by Praxis with the goal to champion the distinctive contribution...
