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Guide to reflective journal

We have reached the end of the reflective journal. 

For a better understanding of all these words written, here is some advice as to how to navigate this blog - follow the hashtags (I’ve added the links): 

#immersive

#evidence

#research

#ethnographic research

#storytelling

#metamedia

#stakeholder

#feedback

#research question

#intergenerational communication 

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The critical view

After having iterated and reflected upon 4 interventions, there were moments were I tried to control certain situations. Dealing with human interaction is something very hard to control, specifically when it is individuals from different generations, where the communication and even usage of language is different every time. I guess that is part of my research objective, right? When talking about intergenerational communication, it is because of the current ‘difficulty’ or indifference towards this connection, which is vital in understanding more about our individual selves.

Through my interventions, there were certainly moments of impact: dealing with human emotion, breakthroughs in realizing the power memory has in storytelling, or the transmission of other people’s stories through different lens: how does that feel? The true impact can be shown in the way people express themselves once the intervention is over. Every time they finished participating, there were thoughts, questions, curiosities. In intervention 2, the young generation (ages 10-18) was particularly interesting: I could see they were trying to answer what I thought would be ‘right’, but also they were so curious to see the objects they had heard their grandparents narrate on the recordings. One girl felt guilty for not knowing more about her grandmother’s valuable object, apologizing for not showing interest before. These kind of interactions were very unexpected, and also very personal to the individual’s experience.

I quickly saw that every participant was very influenced by their surroundings, which were never controlled (almost all my interventions took place in uncontrolled environments, where distractions came easy). This also instantly revealed people’s personality and even identity traits: I was fascinated by how some people took the ‘instructions’ very seriously, while others were distracted, or casually did it without much thought, or actually simply did not care. I think this is the result of trying to measure emotion and engagement, very in a way, abstract and humane factors.

Some times it has been easier, because of the openness of the participants, and sharing very clearly what they felt (reflection round in intervention 1). Other times, it was through their actions that I could understand their empathetic nature (like in the funeral scene of intervention 4).

Under different circumstances, I might have created a written feedback form or some sort of reflective thing that the participants could take their time understanding and that could serve as proper feedback, helping me understand whether metamedia narratives built closer, empathetic connections or not.

At the end of every intervention, I was very emotional to have seen the interaction, intergenerational communication and expression of identity that it was hard for me to really step out of it and understand what my next steps would be. It was a personal topic too close to me, my own experience with understanding my place in the world, and that brought confusion and frustration towards the end of the course, where I had to find ways of explaining my findings and my research’s value in society.

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intervention4: reflection

This was one of my most complete interventions to date.

The reason I say this is because of the multiple issues it tackled. It provided me with a good foundation to see the validity of this in the future. Why is that important for me?

Well, ever since I started doing workshops with the drama society, ever since I started reading on empathy, I started seeing the potential of applying my learning to external groups and audiences.

After the intervention, my research question changed slightly, into:

How can we use metamedia narratives as a catalyst for creating stronger empathic connections in the future?

The reason I introduced the word CATALYST in there is because it is a very assertive, hands-on word, suggesting change in a very active way. I kept the word future because I want to show that I am thinking of carrying this research and experimentation after the course comes to an end.

This intervention not only proved the validity and necessity of it, but showed me as a researcher, the universal language of interaction, storytelling and play. Of course, language in communication is fundamental in building any kind of connection, but there we were, in a room full of individuals from all over the world, connecting on multiple levels of cognition. Connecting on various emotional levels, empathising towards an imaginary dead man, crying over the loss of a girl that never existed, feeling worried and confused about the burning of a building that never happened.

I am aware that immersive theatre, role play and all these techniques exist. I am aware that this is very much making reference to such techniques that have been around for a while now. The only difference with my focus and direction is in the element of storytelling and narrative: I am adopting these forms, these METAMEDIA forms, to find a more real, engaging, empathic way of narrating personal experiences. New ways of connecting with different cultures and age groups, because it is a loose, fun form of role-playing with the intention of bringing people closer together.

My last intervention was tested amongst the UAL Drama society; hopefully, by the next time I attempt to present this to the world, it will be amongst people that do not have an affinity for theatre in particular, but do have the need to share their story with the world.

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intervention4: process and interaction

The participants were young migrants, aspiring actors and performers. This is worth mentioning because their motivation for engaging may be greater: they might be more keen than, say, a group of young migrants who is not interested in performing because it is an opportunity to role-play, experiment and explore with techniques, tools of improvisation and more.

I felt it was necessary to start with exercise 0, building connections with our bodies, because the mind is driven by the body and vice versa. With non-dancer groups, it is not accustomed to try exercises that require some form of physicality: even in actor groups, where the posture, body and facial expression matter equally, in this group, I found it necessary to start with an activity such as following each other’s body movement and breath (with their eyes closed), to connect on levels beyond the mental. Having seen the way they interact in previous workshops, I felt inclined to make that decision, because from my personal experience as a dancer and choreographer, I know how much closer simple exercises like these can bring people. With regards to empathy, this is a great way to understand each other’s physicality without judgment, because you do not know who you are connected to, and gain a new type of understanding of the other person.

During the sharing of personal stories, I could see that the participants needed a more ‘dynamic’ setting, so with the help of Gian Carlo de Jesus, fellow classmate and immersive theatre director, we made them built their ‘setting’ out of the available resources in the space. The personal experiences were shared in the ‘park’ setting.

After the first activity, Gian Carlo suggested we make the sharing in groups a bit more interactive by putting them in ‘cars’, the driver of the car being the one who told the story (so they created car formations, and changed drivers 4 times, 3 cars in total, to accommodate 12 people). This was a very interesting decision, because, as actors, they are more willing to play with instant improvised settings, and interact in imaginary environments. As a result, this brought a new kind of energy that made me observe changes in people’s behaviour:

In part 1, the sharing was very intimate and personal (especially considering the topic in hand, can be seen here). In the car-sharing activity though, where people had to share their initial partner’s personal story, some told the story as if it was entirely theirs, going specific with details (even if they were not true). Others did not feel they could do justice to the very ‘real’ story their partner shared, so instead ‘distracted’ the group by acting as if in a car, engaging with the passengers in the car.

The most interesting interaction and sharing of storyline/ metamedia narrative at its finest, was definitely the next setting, which came to be a funeral ceremony. Pretending to be in a cathedral/church setting, every participant went up to the ashes of the deceased and talked about them as if they had any connection with that individual. This was a great tool for bringing all individual characters together, even in a fictional plane, and have them engage and exist through each other’s stories. Even though this was a completely fictional timeline and storyline, people incorporated elements of their characterizations from before to shape their new characters. This exercise brought emotion and empathy to the group; on the game/ playful layer, they felt part of the group and story as everyone had a responsibility and an important role to play, and that fed into their real personalities and how they experience life as people.

Images: footage from the intervention

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The journey of the Research Question

Due to a big shift in perception towards my research methods and the way of I was experiencing and perceiving my topic, I felt as though the RQ:

How can trans-media narratives preserve older generations’ experiences?

was no longer relevant to what I was aiming to investigate. Of course, the older generations’ experiences is one of the key points of my study and interest, but should it really be in the research question?

I went back to my notes when I first started researching on the topic, to see the words I used to describe sources and notes that fascinated me. What I found out was the very prevalent word EMPATHY written in almost every mind-map I made. I thought to myself, why is it I am not using this term anymore? Something so universal and relevant, you cannot miss the word empathy when reading about migration stories, connecting cultures, identity and anything related to contemporary anthropology really.

Empathy is now shown to be a necessity in the ever changing world of business and economy; as everything becomes automated, people desire to connect to their human senses and humane needs, and that is often related to basic human communication and direct connection.

As this ‘re-introduction’ of empathy took place, I was also starting to doubt the use of transmedia narratives. I was not convinced with transmedia, because of its usage on a wider scale. I was looking for creating a new word using media, something that refers to the connection of different media, but also that through media itself, there is a story. This search reminded me of the time I read Marshall McLuhan’s book, ‘the medium is the massage’ where he made a whole book using the book to tell the story, having the message and the form exist parallel tell the story similtaneously.

I thought of hypermedia as a new term, but then it reminded me too much of hyperreality, VR and AR technologies and I wanted it to not immediately relate to the form. Then, I thought of metamedia (as meta in greek refers to after or across/ within, and in the English language, it is used when referring to the media form within the form it is been used: e.g. when a plot of the film makes reference to the film itself as a form).

Googling the term, I found Lev Manovich.

Metamedia is used to show the new relationships between form and content emerging from new technologies. This term was first introduced by Lev Manovich in 1999, in the context of analysing the new wave of media:

The new avant-garde is no longer concerned with seeing or representing the world in new ways but rather with accessing and using in new ways previously accumulated media. In this respect new media is post-media or meta-media, as it uses old media as its primary material.

Of course, the usage of the term is very different, different time, different context. But I was pleased to see it doesn’t have much use today, because I wanted to take its principal meaning, and shift it to make sense to my process.

The question I will work on for my last intervention will be:

How can we use metamedia narratives to inform the building of an empathic future?

This might change slightly as we reach the final stretch, but the idea of using new forms of narrating to build closer empathetic relations is what my research and journey is and has been about.

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intervention4: Interaction, Connection, Storytelling

Drama Society workshop 12/11/19

For my last intervention before submission, I decided to take advantage of the weekly workshops I was co-facilitating for Drama Society (in preparation for our Festival on 4th and 5th of December) and incorporate exercises of non-linear storytelling and measuring empathy as a way to understand new frameworks of communicating and connecting. 

Below you will see the outline of the workshop, how I thought of carrying out the exercises:

Title: Retelling the stories in different frames - developing maps of perspectives

0. Physical empathy: for 10 minutes, the participants will connect, like organisms, move around the space with their eyes closed and maintaining contact, following each other’s breathing patterns and rhythm in movement.

Personal frame

1. In pairs, share a story that makes reference to a past experience: (5 min each person, 10 min total)

Group 1: First heartbreak

Group 2: Favourite childhood memory

Group 3: First time you experienced loss

Conversational Frame

2. While they tell the story, the other person writes down 3 words that stand out from the story (to be used as a guide for next step)

3. All together: each person tells the other’s story, trying to narrate to the rest of the group what they think is representative, adding whatever elements think will transmit the feeling of the story when first shared with them

Collective frame

4. ‘Crowd’ can ask questions to the ‘narrators’ for more details of the story: they can invent or add fictional elements to the story given to them, shaping it in any form/ way they wish (fictional journalism)

5. Empathy cards: provide more context on the character *

Showing indifference about their friends’ pet dying

Jealous of people who have siblings

Secretive about their family history

Curious about their friend’s grandma’s singing career

Sympathetic towards other people’s sad stories

Reliving excitement of childhood memory

Getting more people to reenact the childhood memory

Fear of experiencing loss

Purpose: to develop from the original story into new places - unconsciously adding their own touch what they know and are used to — discovery of personal, cultural identity through other people’s stories and the way we choose to narrate/ act them out

Thoughts:

From individual (real events) to societal frames (fictional journalism)

What is the most efficient way for me to measure empathy in this context?

After talking to Kate Palma de Jesus, researcher in qualitative data in educational platforms, currently implementing coding as primary method of data collection, she advised me to use thematic analysis to break down the results, mostly because of the way it will show clearer impact/change due to the fact that the only ‘constant’ variable is the story/stories they tell to each other.

Who is it for: young generation of people, understanding their ‘place’ in the world -- (re)connecting to their roots

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Action Research: Immersive theatre workshop

G designed a gamified, interactive workshop, or in performance terms, LARP (live-action role play), for the actors of Drama Society, with the aim of understanding the different levels of interaction and immersiveness whilst being part of the experience. They got to experience the ‘game’ as a visitor would be asked for tasks and clues while trying to find specific people within a crowd they do not know.

This LARP has been adapted from G’s original immersive play called Katipuneros RPG, which tells the story of Filipinos forming a secret organization, the Katipunan, to rebel against the Spanish regime who had conquered their land. This was part of his action research and experimental testing to see whether such forms of interactive, dynamic and gamified narrative would make individuals more interested in Filipino history, and hence creating a new term called ‘Playfull tourism’.

In yesterday’s workshop, he adapted his play within the confines of a small studio space, and for only 20 people instead of the regular 200. It was interesting to see how people reacted and engaged with one another, as it was the first time I had worked together with G in assisting and facilitating the storytelling.

I take this experience as a great exercise and practice for my own process; even if immersive theatre is not necessarily the defined form I am using, metamedia forms do play with immersive experiences and participants get involved through sensorial inputs or engage in other ways. Through yesterday’s workshop, with actors who were open to trying new things, I discovered that no matter what the context is, with simple tasks, people can soon immerse themselves and follow each other at ’solving’/ discovering what they need to do. The second part of the workshop was a continuation of the play, only this scene, they were asked to wear blindfolds. When reflecting upon that, the participants mentioned the intensity of the experience, how they lost track of time and space and they were impatient to see where they would be taken next.

With their feedback, I am now able to design a storytelling exercise, following these immersive theater principles, but blending non-linear narratives even more, for the next week’s workshop. We will be focusing on character developments, as it is one of the starting points towards building the immersive hosting experience for the UnBoxed Festival (MAAI festival 2019), and through this, I will be able to offer multiple perspectives of narrative in order for them to think, as participants, actors, artists and individuals, about their cultural and personal identity within the framework of this metamedia narrating experience.

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Recovering from the fall: Researcher bias

Up until now, I have approached this topic and research progress in a very intuitive way. I have been led by my emotional connection towards the topic, and have been met at a crossroads of existential realisation: where am I going with this? Where is this heading?

During Unit 2, my interventions were supported by secondary research, mostly readings on narratives, understanding what kind of methods I am using (such as semiotic or performative narrative systems), which made me question and analyse my actions in a more constructive way. Still, because I was dealing with people, they way the connect and the way they visualise/analyse/ understand concepts and stories, it was difficult for me to set parameters as to what exactly I was expecting to get out of the participants, or rather what would inform and guide me towards my next steps. I think this is one of the primary reasons there was a change in my perception as a researcher; after completing the filming process and presenting a ‘prototype’ to a few stakeholders and the subjects themselves, I found myself not having a clear direction of where I could take this next. Due to my lack of strategic planning towards a desirable path, it brought me to recalibrating and going back to the roots of my research and goal, which had to do with empathy.

When I started my research, I looked at very few sources on empathy from a sociological/psychological point of view, because my focus was on the migration experience, how people communicate their stories of struggle with migration and humanitarian crises, etc.

Now, I started to reposition myself in the context appropriate for my project, by reading Empathic Civilisation by J. Rifkin, the Four Futures of Work (in which they deal with Empathy Economy as one) and catching up on the importance empathy has on a social, political and psychological stance. By providing the right context, I will see the feasibility of defining terms by mind-mapping the ways in which I plan to reach my goal, which is to show the importance of empathy in combating prejudice, making it the key for better communication amongst generations and understanding of one’s self and self-representation.

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Lottie Bolster: understanding (de)humanisation - apathy

A very important part of my change in perspective had to do with my purpose; I did identify empathy to be the outcome I want, building stronger empathic connections amongst each other, but what about the uncertainty?

When I first started, I investigated on the lack of understanding migrants/ immigrants and what they go through, seeing a disconnect them and the general population they were in. Us vs. them. Outsider/ insider perspective.

When my research moved on to older generation experiences, mainly due to my grandparents’ migration experience from Turkey to Greece, I could clearly see the problem but I didn’t really know how to position it, or define it.

Talking with Lottie Bolster in October helped me rediscover the issue I was tackling, by finding new ways of expressing it.

Lottie’s dissertation in MA Art and Science degree dealt with empathy, and the way it manifests in the art world. What was interesting when reading her dissertation was the use of the word (de)humanisation. When talking to her about her research, her initial interest on the topic stems from her own prejudice towards certain groups in society.

She showed me this diagram developed by one of her secondary research sources, a sociologist analysing the different levels of empathy-apathy scale, and the reason behind our quick judgment.

It was fascinating to read and understand such diagram, because it made me realise the missing link in the why, in the motivation for doing my own research: we are all quick to judge someone as we see them, and that leads to our own will to engage with the individual or not. When it comes to less privileged groups (according to the context or circumstances), it is easy for people to show apathy, or indifference towards them. But apathy becomes a form of discrimination, prejudice that does not manifest but is still innate in our thoughts.

So, thanks to Lottie, our conversation and her incredible dissertation, I was able to find a clear motive for my research path, and it highlighted the importance of empathy in our society even more.

Image taken from Lottie Bolster’s dissertation. 

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Research Lab October 8th and 9th, 2019

Led by Cvetana and Ramy

This diagram depicts one of the assignments where we had to state our current stage of research/ execution and where we would like our project to ideally be. Through this process, I find myself questioning if my current research question is really doing justice to the goal and direction I wish my project to take. 

Back to the drawing board!

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Fragments of Time: sharing and feedback

After sharing it with them, I wanted to see what kind of emotion it will trigger for young migrants that grew up with images of this culture, with their grandparents, thinking about the nostalgic connections/ relations with personal experiences.

For Konstantinos Mouratidis, an architect and entrepreneur who moved from Greece to London 10 years ago, this short brought feelings of melancholy because of the connection he made with his grandparents, who passed away. He goes on to say the images and actions he sees in the video refer to the past, actions such as shaving in such manner feel very old-fashioned.

“It’s a mixture of what I see, which reminds me of my family, and the way you constructed the narrative, by adding music and sound, pauses, making it more of a tribute or an ode to them, which makes the whole thing more immersive and more nostalgic”.

When receiving this feedback, I felt I did purposefully transition from raw footage documentary style to something more of a ‘poem’ to them and for them, because it made more sense with the way my grandmother was sharing that particular story, also making reference to a song which blended the whole atmosphere nicely.

Through this process, I was left with a lot of emotion and confusion as to how does this have relevance on a bigger scale. How can I transform this into a model or a form that can be sustainable and shared through multiple scale, levels, media? I want to reach out to a bigger audience, or not necessarily bigger, but definitely an audience that will need this research, this interaction, so what is the most impactful way to get there?

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Fragments of Time: sharing

Right before leaving from Athens, I made a short video to show the documentation process to the subjects themselves, my grandparents. They were curious to see what the past 7 days had been about, and I felt it was an important part of the process, to capture their reaction and to receive from them, what were they witnessing, how it made them feel, how did it capture their story.

It was an emotional journey for both of them, not only because they shared personal memoirs and stories that put them in a vulnerable position, but to see themselves on camera was very impactful. The combination of their storytelling with their facial expressions and actions brought a lot of emotion, because they felt exposed to the world. They have never been in front of the camera, so to see themselves in such context was very striking to them.

An interesting realisation came from my grandfather: he had never seen or heard my grandma read her writings out loud, and because part of the narrative is tied by her writings, he got to listen to them for the first time. He was very surprised at how poetic and symbolic her writing was, the telling of her stories that connect back to her childhood, tales she never told him, but also stories that they share together, told from a very different place, a place of nostalgia and sorrow and almost grievance. Due to this, they both admitted to my filming having brought a lot of memories and in a way, helping them remember the why and how of their existence together but also as individuals. Through these thoughts, I kept thinking how this relates to me, what is it about their storytelling that brings me closer to them?

Images: personal footage

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Fragments of Time: filming, use of imagery, symbolism

Having received feedback and suggestions from the filmmaker Zhang Tingzhi, when filming, I was mindful of the type of filming I was looking to capture. Not having filmed to this extent before, I am not an expert in knowing how to capture certain effects or angles that would help the story in a way that would be interesting. I looked into documentary shorts that I enjoy, the raw and unedited, following the main subject around. In this case, the Nowness platform was an interesting source to look at how they use moving image to transmit an emotion in a non-linear narrative. In particular, the series on going to artists’ houses and following them around as they show their home is very inspiring for this purpose. One of the aspects that work well on these shorts is the presence of multiple close-ups, of decorative objects around the house they are showing, objects that the artists refer to as they are taking the viewer around the house, but also actions they carry out, such as writing, playing with things in their hands, holding coffee mugs, expressions.

Still from My Place: Charli XCX on Nowness.com 

One of the suggestions Zhang Tingzhi gave me was to focus on objects and items (in a similar approach to intervention 2, where the older participants were asked to share an object of personal value to them, and their grandkids had to imagine the looks of the object by just listening to the narration and story behind it), as a way to enhance and engage with a story in more ways than just by listening to words. Visual imagery helps viewers associate with ideas and concepts, and the feeling of it, even more.

As I would film my grandparents going about their day, I paid attention to the stories and references told, and when I was not filming them, I would go around the house, taking notes of several aspects that could help build the narrative of what they have been telling me even more, through the showing of house objects/ personal items/ any symbolic reference.

Because their stories involve migration and travelling, adapting to new cultural landscapes, it was important for me to discover where roots and early identity resides within the objects they possess, or where it gets lost.

It has always been part of my identity trying to understand how much of a ‘Turkish’ influence I have due to my grandparents’ cultural identity. Even though I don’t speak the language, I have always heard Turkish-Greek expressions been spoken, or traditions been carried out, and this has to do with the way my grandparents found a balance between the cultural elements they had growing up and the reality they encountered when they first moved to Greece.

Images: personal footage. 

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Fragments of Time: experimenting on transmedia narratives

September 15-30th, 2019 

Athens, Greece. 

My research question being ‘How can transmedia narratives preserve older people’s experiences?’ I decided to go further at exploring the idea of transmedia and for that, I researched examples in which transmedia storytelling takes place. Most examples refer to sequels, sagas and storylines such as Star Wars or the Marvel Universe, where the narrative and sequence of events expands and transcends to multiple media outlets (film, series, shorts). The followers of such stories sometimes have to wait years until the continuation of the story is released in yet another media form, but it is what makes this form of telling the story more exciting and personal to the viewer. There is a connection with a viewer that keeps them attached, interested, and they relate to it as in the waiting time in between media forms, they get the chance to speculate on how it will proceed, taking on clues on how the story could unfold.

In this case, and as I described in my previous post, I am using transmedia for its fusion of message and form, making storytelling be shared through multiple channels and in a non-linear manner. This is what I intend to do with the ‘ethnovideographic’ (ethnographic research captured in video) approach I took when filming in Athens.

I spent 7 days staying in my grandparent’s summer house and city house (the summer house being where I have my fondest memories growing up). My intention with observing them as they went about their day, filming them communicating with each other while I was behind the camera, sharing stories with me as if there we were having normal conversations, was to test how much impact the medium can have on the participants (in this case my grandparents and myself): whether it would be an obstacle or a new connection could be formed. It was an experiment to see how connectivity and intergenerational communication could be captured through film, stories told through shorts. In relation to my previous interventions, this next step offers a micro vision of transmedia dialogues that could potentially open up new channels and models of reachability between generations, not only to share stories and help their experiences live on, but also to find relations and better understanding of one’s personal/cultural identity. Through the stories my grandparents share with me, about their past, when they were my age, I make connections with my own journey in understanding my role and position in this world, while finding parallels with their experiences.

The reason I call this research/intervention process ‘Fragments of Time’ because I wish this project to take a path towards documentary shorts in a fictional journalistic tone. The title makes a reference to time, as in all stories shared and narrated, time is the omnipresent character, the past is present in many forms, bringing about feelings of regret, what ifs and remembering the identities of their past selves.

Image: personal footage

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ethnography / field research

July and August 2019 I visited events, gatherings, interactive installations and presentations that informed me about what others were/are doing with regards to the field I am working in. Here I share findings from a few of them:

Immersive walk: Tracing Erased Memories: A Parallel walk of London and Cairo

(By the NarrativeCollective) Immersing the viewer in two cities at once, this work traces the political events that took place decades ago. they choose this form of communicating with the viewer to find connections and parallelisms between the two cities. This walk brought some interesting insight when it comes to screen and live interactions: the process of physically walking and digitally walking in another city adds a very interesting layer of presence vs. absence, existence in both worlds at once, and it is a valid form to consider for future designs and engaging the audience. 

AudibleHag: Retelling English Folk tales through modern storytelling

This event hosted by Audible was valuable for my research for one purpose: the ‘retelling’ of old tales. Taking classic folk tales and reviving them by making them ‘current’. It made me consider what current might mean, if taking stories that took place many years ago and rewriting them to make sense today is current, then what happens to the true stories? Where they ever true? 

Shubbak festival: conference talks

Writers from the Middle East, finding their identity and a new sense of what home means to them. They read extracts from their novels and told their journeys and experiences migrating. Talking to some of the writers, they gave me a sense that personal identity for them is deeply rooted into culture and religion. Through this reflection, I started talking to my Greek family about how we view religion in comparison to other cultures and ethnicities, and how closely rooted it is to our celebrations, rituals and family gatherings. This is when I started looking into belief as a form of identity, an additional factor that defines who we are. 

In addition to these, I visited many photography galleries dealing with migrant identity and diaspora. I went to Athens Photo Festival 2019, hosted in the Benaki Museum in Athens, where multiple artists raised questions regarding connections with generations, objects and what happens when they are passed down to us, insider/ outsider perception, and cultural norms ‘forming’ your identity. In general terms, these events made me understand the power of photo journalism and documentary, as forms of expressing the surreal within the reality people live in. The artists act as observers yet, they have a very interesting relationship with their subject, testing the boundaries, evaluating the morality of their actions as researchers on other individuals’ lives.  

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Stakeholder feedback:  Zhang Tingzhi

Zhang Tingzhi, a young documentary filmmaker that felt the need to make a film about her grandparents, this way building a closer connection to them. 

Tingzhi documents the change and displacement of her grandparents’ home, how this change affects their identities and sense of belonging; after 50 years in the same home, they are forced to move out due to gentrification and construction developments in the city. This change makes her grandparents look back, share their memories and experiences, and paint a picture on how things have shifted.

I decided to talk to her because of her process as a researcher on a subject that is so close to her. 

When sharing my project with her, she found a lot of similarities with the notion of home and identity that is narrated by the elders in the sound recordings of intervention 2. She told me that I should look into time is an important factor, consider it in as a way to ‘test’ or observe changes between generations. 

In her film, she shows frames, photographs, small objects lying around. I asked her about it and what she thinks these represent when looking at her relationship with her grandparents, and she said that it is part of their daily lives, she felt almost obliged to include them. Her grandfather collects photographs so for him, it is a big part of how he preserves his memories. 

She advised me to look into the objects or daily items that people in my interventions keep with them, what it says about their identity now in relation to the past. Similar to intervention 2, she said that I should test new items with them, see how they will interact and give meaning to them. Maybe through contrasts, more stories and narratives of their past lives would surface. 

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post-inter2: reiterating the RQ

After analyzing and evaluating intervention 2, the way participants interacted, the feedback and interest I received from external audience and reflecting on my next steps, I thought of revisiting my research question.

Unit 2 began with this question in mind:

How can different ways of storytelling build closer connections between generations of migrant families?

After finishing intervention 1, I considered storytelling was a key word, acting as the tool with which I would experiment, explore and design interventions by reshaping the meaning of storytelling and what it can entail. 

I rewrote my question to specifically fit the needs and goals of intervention 2:

How can we use personal objects to build closer connections between the youth and the elders?

This question was a good guide to help me develop the intervention successfully, understanding exactly what I was investigating. Even though I was reluctant with using such specific wording, it helped when evaluating the impact objects had in the story and design of the intervention. Through this question, I was able to rethink the use of objects, focusing not on their materiality, but on the context, meaning and emotion they bring to the surface. The engagement of both generations and the nostalgic journey back in time for the elder generations led me to direct my attention to what else I could take out of these objects, the stories and the past experiences, this time adding the visual impact of these. Through conversations with one of my stakeholders, she talked about the metaphorical use of visuals or sounds that add layers of meaning, and I consider exploring this notion further.

My current research question stands at:

How can trans-media narratives preserve older generations’ experiences?

Trans-media narratives being the factor that changes (because of it being the tool of exploration), I chose to include the word ‘preserve’ as a way to refer to time. I have been discovering that time, or the passing of it, has a direct relation to identity and storytelling by the elders, which is why I also talk about experiences rather than stories. I am looking at storytelling and its creative outputs, but only as means of keeping these individuals’ experiences alive.