In which we tell ourselves stories to live, work and play

The power of narrative at London’s best storytelling conference

The Story is an annual creative conference that celebrates stories. In particular, stories about storytelling. Organised by Storythings, an agency that consults and produces stories with brands, this is not a corporate conference. The talks are not given on behalf of companies or agencies — although the BBC, the Guardian, Buzzfeed and Microsoft Research have been represented in the past — they are usually individuals that have a compelling story to tell, and who have dedicated their lives to storytelling in one form or another.

This year the thread that seemed to tie the talks together was around the sheer power and privilege of being able to tell stories, and the consequences of who gets to tell stories and who listens to them. Whether that was C Spike Trottman discussing the difficulties of being a person of colour and queer in the comics world, or Daniel Meadows capturing the disappearing world of working class Northern families.

Sometimes the act of physically creating something is a way to take back one’s personal narrative from that being sold by the media online and in print — tired of formulaic and ‘pretentious’ blog, the Born N Bread creative collective created their own paper zine. They found a local audience for their work online and off by putting their own hands to the means of production. As young women from West African backgrounds, seeing their Peckham neighbourhood in flux, they found a revolutionary movement could be sparked by the very act of publishing.

Another common thread was the conflict at the heart of telling stories with digital technology. As artists Thomson and Craighead said, Google Maps gives the illusion of having the globe at your fingertips, but in reality it is a controlled, dead filter of the world. You will experience more of life’s rich tapestry walking down the road to the cornershop. And while social media gives previously unheard voices a new platform, it also opens up channels of abuse and violence, as journalist Musa Okwonga discussed.

Here’s a quick look at the line up, with links to the speakers’ projects.

Musa Okwonga

Writer and broadcaster Okwonga discussed the subject of writing journalism and social commentary in the social media age. In the current environment of instant feedback and potential abuse over social media, how can a journalist say what needs to be said? You can read the full essay here.

Gaia Vince

Environmental journalist Vince talked about her new book — Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made — an engaging new look at how the growing population of humans, and the way that we live and feed ourselves, is irrevocably changing the earth. She gave examples of how geo-hacks — like an artificial glacier built to water Himalayan crops — might just reverse or delay the decimation of natural habitats and communities.

Daniel Meadows

Daniel is a photographer who has been documenting the country for over 40 years. He is now creating ‘digital stories’ out of his archive material and sound recordings, in an effort to release all of this amazing material in a format that’s accessible. The results are truly magical, shining a light on stories that would otherwise be lost, or considered not important enough to tell — the voices and personalities of working class families and homes. By using archival photos and sound, on Vimeo, it creates a new documentary genre that is intimate and profound.

Thomson and Craighead

This artist duo use the internet as their material — creating installations from spam emails, karaoke videos, local tweets. Their karaoke installation highlighted the artistry behind a good spam email — they contain everything a good story needs, politics, love, power, desire, peril. They are pure marketing gems, because what really separates a promotional video, or a humourous billboard ad, or a social campaign, from these lowly spam emails? They are all trying to sell the viewer something, a dream, a myth, an empathetic response that will prompt an action.

C Spike Trotman

Trotman is the founder of Iron Spike Comics, Chicago’s largest comics publisher, and an indie comics maker themselves. Trotman’s message was an interesting look at how behaviour and structures built on the internet can rapidly build up and tear down business models. Five years ago, web comics could make their money from banner ads and t-shirt sales, but now banner ads have plummeted because users no longer go to specific websites for their content — they expect it to be delivered to them via Facebook or Twitter, thus artists’ content is driving ad sales and building traffic for Facebook and Twitter. However, Spike made the point that when new business models develop, it can make it easier or open doors for new artists who previously didn’t have a platform or outlet.

Dallas Campbell

Dallas is a TV presenter and actor who came in to talk about the history of the spacesuit — and how this piece of equipment told a story of original space travel, both in terms of technical invention and what the media wanted that story to be — the original spacesuits were made of green khaki canvas, which was spray painted silver for aesthetic effect.

James Ball

James Ball is currently a special correspondent for Buzzfeed, previously a special projects editor at the Guardian — he described working on the HSBC money laundering story that broke last year, and how his team worked to unpick the stories they could and couldn’t publish behind thousands of excel spreadsheets. The recent profile of Buzzfeed in Fast Company highlights just how important Big Data is to journalism, entertainment and marketing — especially where those three topics intersect — and Ball’s narrative of the HSBC story reveals the importance of using this data to challenge power structures.

BORN n BREAD

A creative collective of women from Peckham who found a physical magazine the best way of spreading their story and building a brand — targeting a niche audience with relatable content, making their everyday lives and memories aspirational, which has resulted in a radio show with NTS and a brand partnership with Pum Pum Socks.

Wolfgang Wild

Wild is the founder of Retronaut and he discussed his experience of building a blog from scratch — everything clicked when he started to publish content he was really passionate about and wanted to share. He’s turned his blog into a consultancy for museums, a brand and a book, which is currently raising funds at Unbound.

Helen Zaltzman

Broadcaster, writer and comedian Zaltzman currently runs the Allusionist podcast — a show about language and enytmology, part of the celebrated Radiotopia network and PRX. She told an entertaining story about handwriting, it’s importance in her life and others.

Hannah Nicklin

Is a performer, games designer, artist and poet. She has many strings to her bow, and her piece for the conference was a mix of spoken-word performance and a critical call to arms for artists and storytellers alike. Nicklin’s work is often about how performance, games and digital can interconnect. She is currently working on a community-based project in Poplar, East London, to create an interactive narrative out of the characters and stories based in the area.

Jamie Byng

Jamie Byng is Canongate’s publisher, and he discussed is his journey from DJ’ing and running a nightclub to becoming Obama’s publisher. The success of the Letters Live brand has brought a whole new platform for storytelling to the public, and is used to raise money for literacy charities and the refugee camps in Calais.