User:Clara/Workshops

a and a

"a and a" is a series of generative story workshops each developed to adapt to a specific audience and topic. The stories have blanks to be filled in by the participants in order to create their own wonderful narrative. All based on Clara's Master research of "How can generated short story workshops be used as a method to express and deal with an issue?"

"I am using animals to teach men" La Fontaine, 1668

"I am using workshops to teach creativity to all" Clara, 2022

We believe that at a certain age creative activities such as drawing and writing are skills and not forms of play and expression. Many leave them behind with the excuse of not being skilled enough to use these "skills". The generative workshops Clara developed aim to forget this notion and help people relearn their potential. Anyone can write and draw. And anyone should be given the opportunity to use that to express themselves.

a project by Clara Gradel

Clara has a passion for story telling and is always exploring new interactive formats. Her graduation work is still ongoing and just starting. She aims to develop this project further and keep creating new workshops.

how to generate a story

This was the kickstart of this project and was used to develop the concept and idea further. There was no theme other than trying to figure out what was necessary in order to get people to generate a short story. The workshop took place in Leeszaal, in Rotterdam, on the 11th of October 2021 and it was split up into 3 short 10min workshops. The challenge was the short amount of time but that was also the tool used to get people not to overthink about the story they were creating. The participants of each workshop had to pick a piece of paper that contained a thing they had to use in their story. For the first workshop the participants picked characters as a set variable, for the second workshop it was a location and for the third workshop it was an object. This workshop was a great first step in order to understand the dynamic of creating a story and the amount of guidance required.

in Leeszaal

how to find housing

This was a collaboration with Jara van Teeffelen. After the workshop at Leeszaal it was clear that the workshops needed a storyline driven by a specific topic. Jara tends to work with Palestinians living in the West Bank, she focused her work on taking a Palestinians' daily life struggle into context and how one could use an object in order to help them overcome a challenge. Together with Clara's use of a generative story structure they created a workshop on the topic of housing problems. This workshop took place in Mediamatic in Amsterdam from the 28th till the 30th of October 2021 and at the time there were ongoing protests about the housing crisis in the Netherlands. This workshop was a way to open up a different way to have a conversation about what was happening. There were 4 different versions of the story with each a different problem to overcome which were problems they had faced as students in search of housing.

in Mediamatic

how to work remotely

This workshop was with people working in an office in Amsterdam and it took place on the 17th of December 2021. The topic of the workshop was about working remotely which was something they had been dealing with during the pandemic. The format had to adapt because it had to be online with a group of more than 30 people. The book format changed into a google slides and instead of drawing the participants could use any found image to illustrate their story. This was an insightful workshop that made people open up to being creative as the workshop provided an easy and comprehensible format with just enough guidance. It helped them have fun and bond with each other as they read out their stories.

in EGI

how to confront time

project theme and audience description

in Jong Talent

how to regain freedom

Again collaborating with Jara for this workshop but this time using a topic that was inspired by her thesis. Jara being half Palestinian perceives freedom in a certain way and was interested by creating a workshop that would enable you to regain a lost freedom. The workshop took place in the art gallery W139 in Rotterdam on the 20th of March 2022 and welcomed people of all ages. In their stories the participant introduce one object that would help them regain the freedom that they’ve been missing. How could a random object support their value of freedom? Using a poster zine layout the publication also played with a contrasting idea, the poster could be displayed and played with the visual of protesting whilst the fact that it could be hidden and folded was to reflect on the sensitivity of protesting for freedom.

in W139

how to find childhood

on the 24th of June at WORM