United Story

Do what makes you happy.

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:34:55 -0500

Do what makes you happy.

Gordon Parks, Segregated drinking fountain, Mobile, Alabama,...

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:30:35 -0500

Gordon Parks, Segregated drinking fountain, Mobile, Alabama, 1956, (1956) at Adamson Gallery.

Wise Words Art Project Via newmuseum: Shagun Singh gives us...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:11:58 -0500

Wise Words Art Project

Via newmuseum:

Shagun Singh gives us insider details about Wise Words, a project as part of IDEAS CITY celebrating women immigrants in New York City. Don’t miss this from May 1–5!

IDEAS CITY, a biennial Festival in New York City from May 1 – May 4, explores the future of cities around the globe with the belief that arts and culture are essential to the vitality of urban centers, making them better places to live, work, and play. This year’s theme is Untapped Capital, with participants focused on resources that are under-recognized or underutilized in our cities. Learn more at www.ideas-city.org.

ORGANIZATION: Artist Build Collaborative and Urban Matter Inc.

NAME: Shagun Singh

PROJECT TITLE: Wise Words

Wise Words is an interactive storytelling installation that showcases immigrant stories from women who migrated to New York in the first half of the twentieth century. We are currently interviewing women who emigrated from places across the globe, such as Taiwan, the Philippines, Haiti, and more. Their experiences building their homes and families in unknown cities are rich and powerful stories that deserve to be told and, in doing so, can help us envision a future in which cities are more open and receptive to diverse cultures.

PROJECT: THANKSGIVING DAY STORY EXCHANGE IN DENVER, CO

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 06:03:00 -0600

For the 2010 Thanksgiving holiday, We Are Storied founders Cambrie Nelson and De Nichols will be spending 5 days in both the city and mountains to solidify elements from organizational structure to branding to communications to grants to curriculum platforms and our 2011 timeline of endeavors.

In addition to this big step in We Are Storied development, the pair will also be collaborating with the Barter Collective on Thanksgiving Day to execute a story exchange with the Denver community. The deal: they will provide individuals Thanksgiving pie for anecdotes and stories about the life experiences, triumphs, and challenges for which they are thankful.

Experiences from this endeavor will be recorded, documented, and shareed each day via the We Are Storied site, Twitter, Facebook, and blog. Please tune in with De and Cam by following We Are Storied on each of these social media sites.

To share your stories of thankfulness with us, visit the Share tab on the We Are Storied site and Facebook pages. One (or maybe more than one) story will be chosen to further execute creative We Are Storied projects—you never know if it will be yours!

To support us in our journey with We Are Storied, email wearestoried.org@gmail.com. We are looking for more opportunities, designers, and funding to help share this awesome endeavor!

STEVE, FROM DENVER

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:03:00 -0600

STEVE, FROM DENVER

REFLECTIONS: THANKSSHARING IN DENVER, CO

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:47:00 -0600

Pie has amazing power.

Our ThanksSharing project proved it.

This past Thursday, We Are Storied cofounders, Cambrie Nelson and De Nichols, engaged a new sense of “family” and “home” with the Denver, CO, community. Forgoing dinner and comfort in their respective hometowns, the two shared both Thanksgiving dinner and pie with many as they listened to stories throughout the day.

Many stories at the beginning of the day came from Denver’s homeless population as De and Cam broke bread with others at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Here, they shared a traditional Thanksgiving meal Peter, Scott, Leah, and 900+ others as they learned about the journeys and experiences that united them at the RBB restaurant.

Later in the day, the two executed their own initiative with Denver’s Barter Collective. Using the BC truck, which is currently on exhibition at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, they exchanged pumpkin pie for stories with sojourners in the Civic Center Park. In their encounters, they met

Steve, who shared about his favorite foods and surviving suicide;

Ramsi and Solomon Ali, from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, respectively, who shared of their journeys and fulfillment in America;

“Detroit,” a 19yr old, prolific wordsmith, who blew our minds away with his poetic talent and philosophies about wisdom, the power of words, and life lessons learned growing up in Detroit;

“Bama,” a music enthusiast from Alabama, who shared his life’s journey after running away from home at 13;

Tydus, Richard, and Dave, whose journeys collided to created their own traveling family;

Jo, an Italian homeless girl of many talents and spoken languages; and

Nico, Jo’s mate.

Also view this video of the Rock Bottom Brewery dinner (De is featured in the background).

PRESS: "The Stories Project: Sharing stories across campus"

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:00:00 -0500

By Paula Lauris
SENIOR SCENE EDITOR

As students at Washington University, we all have unique stories to tell. Some of us have overcome a difficult childhood; others have survived the tragic loss of a family member, and still others have had trouble adjusting to life on a college campus. Recognizing that students could be united in their personal experiences, senior De Nichols launched The Stories Project in 2008 as a way for students to share their stories.

Nichols was inspired to start the project after sharing a personal experience with others at the Redefining Community Experience Retreat hosted by the Office of Student Activities.

“I shared my story and it made people cry. People came up to me afterwards to say, ‘De, you should share your story with students across campus,’” she explained.

After considering the idea for a year, the communications design major decided to take action and transform her experiences into inspirational posters that she and friends hung throughout Wash. U.

As word of The Stories Project spread, Nichols created a blog so that more students could share their stories and read those of others online. Unlike the popular Post Secret Web site, however, Nichols explained that students submit written stories, not postcards, on the site.

“They’re not necessarily just short blurbs, like many are, but some are actually in paragraph form and really long,” she said.

While most of the submissions to The Stories Project speak to pivotal life changes, students can share any type of experience on the blog. As Nichols described,

“Many stories have honestly made me cry. Others have touched me deeply. Some have even made me laugh, but I just say it’s an honor that students are being open to sharing them.”

The Stories Project blog allows students to include their name and year with their stories or to submit them anonymously. Nichols, however, believes that there is value in students revealing themselves through their submission:

“The faculty really strives to know each student by name and story. I really started questioning that with all of the stuff that I was doing and saying, ‘I don’t really recognize how we are living up to that goal.’”

Indeed, the concept of creating a space for people to reveal their stories is something that Nichols believes is important for students to connect with each other. Nichols, who shared her personal experience of getting in fights as a child, explained,

“One thing that I’ve realized is that I’m not alone on campus. Many students have shared similar stories to mine, some that I haven’t even shared yet.”

Nichols hopes that The Stories Project helps students bridge typical divides to unite together in their experiences.

“We’re not just students, black people, Asian people or Christians, we come with a wealth of experiences with us, and that really impacts the things that we do on campus as well as how we treat each other across campus,” she said.

In addition to a blog, The Stories Project incorporates Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Nichols also uses her talent for graphic design to translate the message of different stories into captivating posters that she displays around campus.

She has been granted the right to hold an exhibition of the posters in the Danforth University Center this semester and is currently meeting with other campus organizations to finance this display.

In addition to expanding The Stories Project internally, Nichols is working with KWUR to produce a radio show similar to NPR’s “This American Life” that will be related to the project. She also hopes to record students telling their stories in order to document their experiences in a more personal way.

In the future, Nichols, who is using The Stories Project as the focus of her communications design seminar, hopes to write a book about the project and perhaps even have it on the reading list for incoming Wash. U. freshmen. As the project continues to grow, however, one thing remains certain: Its focus will always be on allowing students to share their stories.

View article on StudLife site.