How to Tell a Herstory
How to Tell a Herstory is a unique platform, tool and workshop for telling narratives about women, to witness and celebrate their experiences. An effort to unarchive stories that are sometimes hidden, not often heard and are eclipsed by more dominant stories. Our aim is to open a space for thinking and critical reflection on gender, migration and familial power structures through the lens of vernacular photography.
At the heart of this project are women storytellers and their narratives of love, belonging and migration told through the family photo album. The project explores the potential for storytelling by intersecting the family photo album with machine learning techniques.
At the centre of each herstory narrative are a few photographs of the subject of the story, selected by the storyteller and uploaded to our Herstory Tool. The tool analyses photos using machine learning and then prompts the storyteller into a narrative flow. The completed herstory is a visual essay with text, photos, annotations and voice notes.
Alongside the How to Tell a Herstory tool we offer free community based workshops for women from different backgrounds. During this workshop they will write their own herstory and bear witness to each other’s experiences.
After the workshops, a textile artwork was created in collaboration with Dutch artist Marjolein van der Wal that wove together a selection of Herstories and photographs from the workshop participants. The artwork simultaneously showcases some results of the workshop and invites visitors to sit down, reflect, read some of the stories and honour the women who are at the centre of each story. The artwork is designed so that it can grow and travel through to various cultural institutions.
How to Tell a Herstory took place at deVoorkamer community centre in Utrecht in May 2022 and was shown at Van Abbe Museum, Embassy of Inclusive Society at Dutch Design Week 2022. It is kindly supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL, Stichting Stokroos and FOTODOK.
Creative technologist: Babusi Nyoni
Moderator workshops: Ebru Aydin
Visual designer: Lisa van Kleef
Textile artist: Mar-vellous (Marjolein van der Wal)
Photos by: Sana Mulay, Bassam Wehba and Mitchell van Eijk
“By looking for the answers, you dive further and further into history. Sometimes that search is painful, sad or there are details missing. Sometimes the stories are really beautiful and endearing. Or sometimes the stories were very mysterious. Sharing all those stories created a sense of recognition and connection.”
