The City of Kitchener 2014 artist in residence is Dwight Storring, a digital storyteller and media artist. Storring's year-long residency, entitled Neighbourhood Voices, will document life in the stories of Kitchener's neighbourhoods by collecting personal stories of residents.
Storring will draw out the richness of life in Kitchener in 2014 through personal stories of family and community, using still images, audio and video combined into a collaborative documentary film, using the city's community centres as a place to start.
Storring will also hold three story-gathering events at selected locations, for participants of all skill levels. Through a step-by-step storytelling process that includes neighbourhood mapping, video portrait making; a story-sharing circle and one-on-one story coaching, residents' stories and interviews will be recorded in video.
"My art is centred around the personal narrative and its resonance within the large societal narrative," Storring says. "I strive to bring people's personal stories to light and cast the storytellers as players within a community space."
Storring spent 15 years as a photojournalist and photo editor with the Record before starting the paper's first website in 1996. His work includes projects for IMPACT 13, Women's Crisis Services Waterloo Region, inREACH program, House of Friendship and Waterloo Region. His Latitudes and Longitudes digital storytelling tour,
Made in Kitchener,
is a Kitchener 100 project celebrating the city's centenary in 2012.
In every project, story is central.
"I aim to honour people's personal stories while bringing a new perspective to the work through curatorial practices of collection, relationship-making and interpretation," he says.
Visit Dwight's page