storywalks for sustainability
a toolkit for democratising imaginations of space, place, and your environment
STORY ROOTS FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES
'More delicate than the historians’ are the map- makers’ colors.''
- 'The Map' by Elizabeth Bishop
Welcome! I'm fascinated by the stories we tell about places — where we come from, our relationships with our environment, and how place ultimately shapes us. In my mind, the most memorable of these stories always start from the ground up. They privilege the lived experiences within a place and emphasise collective experience. More than telling stories, the best stories create a sense of community and shared experience.
In this toolkit, I hope to empower you to create your own storywalk. Whether that be with some friends, or a fully organised walking tour. I've also made a video of my own walking story, which I've added some personal reflections on to help you understand my thought process.
WHAT IS A STORYWALK?
Storywalks are where oral stories are told during a walk. They take advantage of the local environment and the dynamism of a walk to complement oral stories. They aim to foster a sense of kinship with place by relocating everyday places into the enthralling world of stories.
Challenging the dominance of cartography's top-down view in discourses of space, storywalks aim to ground this discourse within a place to democratise the way we talk about space and emphasise the interconnectedness of all things, against the delineations that appear on a map. Stories can be set anywhere, and storywalks are ultimately re-imaginations of your local environment and ways of interacting with it, guided by your story.
While planning a storywalk, you might want to keep these questions in mind.
Where would you like to set the major points in your story?
How might you want to adapt your story?
Where might you tread between scenes?
My Story:
the boy on tekong island
The stories you tell don't have to be set in the location they are being told in!
I created this story to reflect on the unyielding nature of urban development in my home country of Singapore. Being in Edinburgh, however, meant that I had to adapt. I chose to start our virtual storywalk at Meadowbank Sports Centre, because its glass facade seeded the idea of a gleaming skyline.
As we move into the jungle of Tekong Island, I decided that setting my second scene within the nearby Holyrood Park would be apt.
Changing your environment is a helpful way of propelling your narrative along, whether in its mood, scene, etc.
Where would you like to set the major points in your story?
How might you want to adapt your story?
Where might you tread between scenes?
Spring was upon us, so I decided to use the gorse bushes as a representation of the spread of the rambutans. Things in your local environment can be very useful in conveying images within your story, and your story is also very useful in bringing the local landscape into a different light.
Storywalks are about interacting with your environment, and that includes other people, animals, and plants. Be sure to make space for everything else when telling your story!
Located on high ground, the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel offered both a great setting to delve into the fantasy of ruins and the past, and gave me a commanding view of Edinburgh's skyline, which complemented my story's conclusion.
Think about the multivalences of a space, and how one location might take on so many other significances.
Where would you like to set the major points in your story?
Where might you tread between scenes?
How might you want to adapt your story?
"The long poem of walking manipulates spatial organizations, no matter how panoptic they may be"
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (p. 101)
Storywalks aim to expand imaginations of space. For my storywalk, I signified the change in scene from the urban to the jungle by walking onto a grass patch and heading deeper into the trees. Wanting to accentuate the sense of distance and rising action, I headed uphill. Tracing my route according to my story, I aim to suspend disbelief, encouraging my audience to re-imagine the capacity of these sites to hold different meanings and images.
If you find yourself in an urban environment, walking through back alleys, underpasses, or side entrances can be a good way of detaching your storywalk from the main throughways. Stories can bring us to worlds that don't even exist in our own. Let your story be your guide.
all media and maps are original
photos and videos taken by adelheid bjornlie
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