NEST Gallery

This is a gallery of images collected during NEST (November Experimental Story Telling), Fall 2016. Participants were invited to share an image that represented a relationship or partnership in their lives. Captions offer additional context for their selection by each participant. During NEST conversations, participants explored one another’s photos in a layered sequence of inquiry and interaction. This discovery process begins with each participant working with someone else’s photo. They are each invited to offer a surface level description of what can be seen in the photo based on the visual elements and subject matter. The others in the group listen without interruption. After each image is described, there is another round of conversation that invites participants to offer possible interpretations as to why they think the image was shared as a representation of a partnership or relationship. After this, pairs within the group get together to tell the fuller story of the image they shared to one another. They are invited to listen carefully to their partner’s story as they will then return to the group with the task of re-telling the story of the image as if it were their own. This first person storytelling was inspired by the work of Narrative 4.

Top Ten Reasons why Newspaper Blackout Stories are the Greatest!

On December 8th, IDSP hosted a multi-lingual newspaper blackout story event for students to de-stress from finals week, get creative, and create something cool!

Here are the top 1o reasons that newspaper blackouts are the greatest…….

1.They Can Be Done in Multiple Languages

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Students used newspaper cut-outs to create blackout stories in Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, Spanish, and Japanese.

 

 

 

 

2. They Play Around with “Meaning”

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In a newspaper blackout story, you un-assign meaning to the original story, and use its words as raw data – to be rearranged into a new story, with new meaning.

The original story of this piece was an article in Spanish about new technologies in open heart surgery.

 

 

 

 3. They Have Limits

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Sometimes limitations can liberate the creative process. Writing a story or poem from scratch can often be daunting.

The limitation of having a pre-determined word bank to work from can actually help the creative process.
 

 

 

4. They only Take About 10 Minutes

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Because we are all busy.

 

 

 

5.They Get Your Creative Juices Flowing.

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6. You May Learn Something New

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If you choose to read your article before you take a sharpie to it.

 

 

 

7. They Are Welcome Break From Finals Week

At the #IDSP16 event at MIIS students took a break from studying for a little innovation and rejuvenation.

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Because graduate school is hard.

 

 

 

8. They Tell a Story

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Storytelling breeds connection, understanding, empathy, communication, action and entertainment

 

 

 

9.They Bring People Together

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At the Blackout Newspaper Story event, multi-lingual students from different programs, staff, and professors all came together to make stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. They Are Fun

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Because that is important too!

 

Sites DOT MIISThe Middlebury Institute site network.