You Too Are a Wanderer

Artistic Research through world-building, story-telling, and mythology.
You Too Are a Wanderer is an artistic research project that explores how myth-making
and storytelling can offer new ways to represent migration in contemporary art.

Through participatory workshops, where myths are shared and responded to with
sound-making and drawing, I created a space for exchange and belonging between
migrants and non-migrants. These workshops inspired the myth of The Wanderer,
which was presented through an art installation.

Here you can listen to the final myth, which was shown in
the final installation: https://youtooareawanderer.cargo.site
See the documentation of the installation here: https://carlasm.cargo.site

The workshop design, which you can find below, serves as an open-source tool for other artists to create their own myths and collaborative artworks, expanding how migration is represented in contemporary art spaces and thus moving away from dominant narratives that are often limited or one-dimensional.

Human Gestures Transcending Borders - Open Source Workshop Design

Who? A group of min. 2 and max. of 6

The group should be culturally diverse; every single participant should be
from a different cultural background.

Where?

In order to show hospitality, the setting of this workshop should be a safe space, in which people feel comfortable and invited to share a part of their culture and thus themselves.

Needed objects:

Sound recording device
Printed Prompts
Pens
Big sheets of paper
Sound-making devices (get creative; build your own instruments)

How?

Preparation before: A before chosen participant should come prepared with a myth from their own culture. Preferably and if possible, this myth should include themes of belonging, community, or traveling.

Let’s begin!

Sound-making Round

The listeners will choose one sound-making device.
The listeners will randomly choose a sound-making prompt:

Choose a character of the story and reenact their essence/personality through sound.
Imagine the place in which this story is happening, and reenact it through sound.
Imagine how this place sounds, reenact this sound.

The story-teller will begin to tell their myth, they can choose their narrating style. It should feel comfortable and personal to the story-teller.
The listeners will deeply listen to the story-teller, if wanted or needed the listeners can take notes on the story.
Once the storyteller is done telling its story, the sound-making can begin. Based on the prompt each listener has received, they will begin to interpret the story and prompt through making sound. Think of an orchestra, the storyteller is the director.
The sound-making will finish intuitively.
To fully finalize the round, the listeners and the storyteller will reflect on the experience sharing their thoughts. Here are some prompts:

How did you experience the story through your senses?
What is the core message of the story?
How did you feel connected to the story and your participants?

Drawing round
After the sound-making round and reflections, the participants should have gained a better feel for this myth. Now it is time to further imagine this myth by reenacting it through drawing.

All participants choose one pen.
The participants will draw based on a randomly chosen prompt,
be as detailed as possible:

Choose a character of the story and reenact their essence/personality, looks…
through drawing (symbols, illustration, words, typography…)
Imagine the place in which this story is happening, draw the space.
(symbols, illustrations, words, typography…)
Choose one particular moment of the story that stuck with you the most, and
reenact this scene through drawing (symbols, illustrative, words, typography…)

The drawing round and overall workshop will finish with a collective reflection, in which the participants share their drawings as well as the overall experience.

The results shall be used as reference, research, and inspiration for your own artistic research project. Make sure to properly credit the participants as well as me!

Lots of success, Carla Sanfratello Marco

Do you want to be part of the archive? Send your results to carlasanfratello@gmail.com

The Archive