Big Stories on Small Screens
Together with the Fotea Foundation and with funding from Hivos, I recently oversaw an experimental publishing initiative in Kampala.
We brought together five expert facilitators and eight participants to answer one question:
How do we reach new audiences with photography?
The process was the focus, and we facilitated long discussions about the role of the photographer, the effects of mediation by outside actors, and the narrative potential made possible if the global north is removed from its position as gatekeeper. We experimented with narrative structures, publishing forms and alternative sharing approaches. In the end we created a WhatsApp chatbot which acts as a digital 'bookshelf', allowing audiences to request PDF files of publications, receive images direct to their handsets, and click through link-rich documents to explore topics for themselves.
The outcomes of this project are wide-ranging, but if you'd like to learn more I encourage you to test out the bot, download the toolkit, visit the instagram page, and read about the participants and their projects on the website (which also has a cool stats page so you can see how visitors use it).
This project forms part of my ongoing work as part of the Networked Audience research group at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, NL.