The Lost Stories Collective
Major project for my Masters at Central Saint Martins
The Lost Stories Collective, in partnership with the Gunnersbury Park Museum, encourages communities to own and disseminate their shared history.
In the Southall Chapter, the Collective worked closely with the community of Southall to define its challenges, most prominently the lack of empathy between the newer incomers and the longer-term residents who are from an older generation. The newer arrivals felt unwelcome and lacked a sense of connection to the place.
In order to reinstate social cohesion and generate attachment to place, newer residents are taken on an experiential journey to discover the personal histories of longer-term residents, thereby uncovering the lost stories woven through their new home.
Using embedded QR codes on signages and a digital platform that facilitates relationships with long-running local businesses, the project puts communities-of-place at the centre of storytelling, evoking memories, histories and a sense of belonging more effectively than if such stories were told inside a museum.
Check out the website here: www.theloststoriescollective.co.uk
(Kindly access this link on your mobile phones for a better experience)
Logo & Colour Palette
Branding Animation
Aims and objectives
Storyboard Video
Dramatic Conflict
Through research, public polls, interviews and design probes, we were able to unpack some of the reasons why the history of Southall was getting lost.
The true reason was nested in the history of the area. Southall has always been a migrant area. However, the reasons for migration have changed over the years. While early settlers were ‘pulled’ to the area due to increasing job opportunities and cultural parity, new settlers were ‘pushed’ here due to reasons such as being priced out of their homes and affordability. Hence, we saw a decline in three key factors with changing demographic makeup - trust, place attachment and empathy.
The Intervention
Prototyping
Story-sharing Workshop
Second phase of prototyping, which was much closer in fidelity to a fully functioning service that we envisioned The Lost Stories Collective to be. We conducted a Story Sharing pop up event in Southall to collect audio stories from residents. We encouraged the local residents to share their personal histories with us and supported them with prompt cards to help jog their memory. We were able to collect 22 stories over the span of a few months.
The aesthetic grammar
LSC Notebooks
Pin Badges
Pin Badges Mockup
Freebie Badge & Invite for Residents
Invite Mockup
Guide Map
The Exhibition
A trail of 6 stories was curated by the team (consisting of members from a local organisation and residents) in an online co-curation workshop and these were converted into signages and were also hosted on an online platform of our website.
The intervention consisted of an attention grabbing signage, a footprint to position visitors, a quote (to generate curiosity) and a QR code that redirects visitors to the audio story on our digital platform. We also created a social hub with an installation of a door containing freebies (branded merchandise like badges), maps and prompt
cards to spark conversations. This hub was a meeting place for the narrator and the participants to come together and share more stories, associate connections and simply get to know one another.
Enhancing the interaction using a digital platform- making it an omnichannel experience
Collaborators
