Media Conte is a digital storytelling project, focusing on the people who are marginalized and tell their untold stories. With the storytelling movement found in the West, it is often said that “everyone has a story to tell,” and so in workshops conducted on the theme, participants appear to feel like they are expected to prepare stories in advance, just to fulfill this credo. However, in the case of Japan, many people don’t seem conscious of their own opinion or aware of the stories of their own life.
In order to harvest the seeds of these untold stories, first, we focused on the role of university students as facilitators, editors, and/or co-creators. They are expected to cooperate with the participants by listening to their unvoiced voices, helping to generate stories and video production.
We then designed workshops that utilize a kind of card. Here, children and senior citizens play with the students within their own pre-story space using various cards, allowing them to identify the seeds of their stories. From these seeds, stories are formed, transformed, and refined. We have so far engaged in seven Media Conte. University students as facilitators have collaborated with, for example, children of foreign working people, international students, aged neighbors, and handicapped persons.
