What are your community stories?  How can you make an impact by sharing those stories? 

Today museum visitors and cultural tourists seek out compelling narratives--stories that strongly connect us to lives and places different than their own. In exhibitions and historic sites, a thoughtful interpretive planning process can help you shape engaging narratives using the power of objects, place and imagination. 

Case Study: Since 2012,  I've been working with Context Travel's city walk scholars to provide tools for shaping narrative and other techniques to more fully engage walk participants in 20 plus cities around the globe.  In-person workshops on narrative and the development of walk frameworks and online materials make it possible for scholars with deep subject knowledge to enhance the ways in which they connect with walk clients on subjects ranging from ancient Rome to revolutionary Paris.  And in return, my global experiences with Context have enriched my own professional practice and helped sharpen my commitment to compelling narratives.

Case Study: In the book, Passing on the Comfort, authors Lynn Kaplanian Buller and An Keuning-Tichelaar told the compelling story of An’s life during World War II in the Netherlands, and of the quilts made by North American women that arrived to shelter those in need. I worked with Mennonite Central Committee and the Menno Simon in the Netherlands to transform this book into a compelling exhibit for international audiences, focusing on An and her work.

In 2011, a Ukrainian version opened at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Kyiv. This museum focuses on the extreme sacrifices made by many Soviet citizens during the World War II but it had never developed an exhibit about kindness and compassion. The museum’s scientific staff, inspired by An’s story and work with me, dug deep into the archives to find compelling stories of kindness to others under the most difficult of circumstances. At the exhibit opening, the United States Ambassador to Ukraine and representatives of other nations remembered the solemn history and shared hopes for the future.

For more compelling narrative projects: Coming Up on the Season; Sayre Historical Society; The Hyde Collection.