Inspiration: Kamishibai Storytelling

I came across this post today from Presentation Zen. Kamishibai is a form of visual and participatory storytelling that combines the use of hand drawn visuals with the engaging narration of a live presenter. Kami (紙) means paper and shibai (芝居 ) means play/drama.

Visual Camp

Visual Camp took place last Tuesday; a mini unconference organised by the DotGovLabs innovation hub to kickstart dialogue between  policymakers and visual communicators. It was a space to explore how visuals might help communicate policies and issues, and how those of us working visually could work with public services and civil society to communicate policies & issues.

Mindful Maps gave a short introduction alongside the marvellous Simply Understand to present the groups with a few thoughts on visualisation which I will write up into a separate post (download the slides here).

We then went into workgroups around various themes. Laura Sorvala and I were in the ‘Maps showing the issues communities really care about’ group, where there was a lively discussion about what the value of map-making might be in terms of creating change.

From the Come to Your Senses event the previous weekend, we had a lot of questions related to this; what do we do with emotional and experiential data once we’ve collected it? How can this type of tool be of real value? How can we design and facilitate the map-making process in communities to make it helpful & relevant to contextual issues?

Image: Laura Sorvala, from this blog post analysing the themes from Come to Your Senses.

This will be an ongoing conversation, as many of the questions asked in the discussion provoked more questions! These are some of the main points covered:

• Maps can facilitate change by helping people connect the dots
• Maps can help us harvest human capital
• The data collected is important, but it’s what we do with it that will actually make a difference
• Maps can aid us in remembering data – conversations, opinions, issues etc
• Can maps translate between the public and policy, and act as a tool to help us find a common language?
• By enabling participation, map-making can give people permission to express opinions and emotions
• Maps can be powerful simply as visions, which can spark real change by altering perceptions, empowering the user and engaging people

More to come on this topic soon, hopefully facilitated by future visual camp conversations!

Ubele critical friends meeting

Earlier this month I recorded at a ‘critical friends’ meeting at SOAS; part of the early stages of the Ubele project (Ubele=Swahili for ‘the future’), which aims to tackle the question “How can we create the next generation of community-based leaders to help build independence and resilience within African-Caribbean communities in England?”. The project is headed up by Reos Partners.

The meeting explored and tested various dimensions of the project so far and the conversation was incredible. I won’t go over the main points here until we’ve posted them on the Reos Retrospective blog and shared them with participants, but here are some images from the recording:

The material generated will also further inform the illustrative identity and visual communications for the project which I am also collaborating with Reos Partners on. The handmade identity for the project was inspired by African craft and symbolism; the symbol in the logo below is an Adrinka symbol which signifies cooperation and interdependence and translates as BOA ME NA ME MMOA WO (‘help me and let me help you’).

For more information about the Ubele project contact Yvonne Field on field@reospartners.com.

How do we visualise happiness?

Last week saw the launch of Action for Happiness, a movement of people committed to building a happier society. The event was hosted in the beautiful St Luke’s near Old Street and was co-organised with All we Need. Liane and Hege from All we Need invited me to come and capture some images at the event.

There were a lot of interesting folk at the event including Mindapples, Headspace, The Strive, Life Clubs, The Young Foundation and many others. Personally I was inspired by the inclusion of the concept of mindfulness in these conversations. Andy Puddicombe from Headspace led a couple of meditation sessions which was the most powerful part of the day for me as being ‘mindful’ illustrates an important connection; that happiness isn’t all about blue skies and fluffy clouds, but an awareness that we have a choice of how consciously we live our lives which includes how we feel, experience and see the world.

The question I went to the event with, and am still holding is ‘how do we visualise happiness’? Any thoughts?