Two local creative talents, Sian Macfarlane and Grace Gelder, have been recruited to work on StoryTrails, a unique immersive storytelling experience coming to Wolverhampton as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, a ground-breaking nationwide celebration of creativity in 2022.
StoryTrails allows local people to experience their town in a completely new way through the magic of augmented and virtual reality. People will be able to use this new technology to travel back in time, experiencing untold local histories from Wolverhampton. These stories will be brought to life in the places where they happened, reanimating public spaces and creating a free, entertaining and playful family-friendly experience. StoryTrails will visit just 15 locations across the UK, including Wolverhampton on 6-7 August. Led by the National Centre for Immersive Storytelling: StoryFutures Academy, the StoryTrails project has recruited the best and brightest creative talent from the local area to showcase the stories of this community as part of the UK’s largest ever immersive storytelling project.
Sian Macfarlane has lived in Wolverhampton since she was 12. Choosing to raise her own children in the city she grew up in, she has been recruited to make an augmented reality story trail around her home turf. She created the exhibition ‘We Are Illuminated’ at the New Art Gallery Walsall, and is currently working on a project exploring Victorian photographer Oscar Rejlander’s relationship with Wolverhampton. Sian loves the city’s people, saying that they are the “Friendliest and funniest. Wolverhampton welcomes great people who stay and call this place their home.” She is also keen to make the most of StoryTrails’ archive access, explaining “I am really excited to explore the archives of the BFI and the BBC. I have been immersed in archival research for some time, using it as a way to activate place and space in my arts practice, and this access is a dream come true!”
Joining Sian will be Grace Gelder, who also grew up in Wolverhampton. They will be making an interactive immersive map of the city. Before the pandemic, Grace completed an artist residency in Surat, India, and has also worked on a photography project aimed at celebrating youth workers. She is particularly proud of “The warmth and humour of the people in Wolverhampton.” Grace is “excited to meet new people, discover the hidden stories of Wolverhampton and to learn new skills myself; all in order to co-create an innovative new creative experience.”
Sian and Grace are part of a team of 50 emerging creative media practitioners who will participate in the StoryTrails project, telling the stories of 15 communities through state-of-the-art immersive technologies in new and surprising ways. These include 17 practitioners creating augmented reality (AR) story trails across city centres and 15 building immersive installations which will map the emotional geography of a location. In addition, nine creatives will develop the virtual reality (VR) experiences and nine will take on a professional placement in one of the StoryTrails partner organisations.
The practitioners will be working with unprecedented access to archive material from the BFI, national and regional film archives across the UK as well as the BBC, with the goal of reimagining the UK’s screen heritage for the future. Full training in immersive technologies, such as augmented reality and 3Dscanning, has been provided. They will be supported throughout their journey by experienced producers.
On 6-7 August, audiences will be guided through an immersive tour of Wolverhampton as they explore stories across virtual and augmented reality and via a series of installations created by Sian and Grace.
Outside Snow Hill Library in Wolverhampton, participants will enter the virtual story portal to begin the StoryTrails experience, guided by a free mobile AR app and local performers. Using a mix of stunning AR experiences that remix the BFI and BBC archive, local people will experience history where it actually happened, revitalising the streets upon which they stand with new voices and untold stories of the past. Inside the library, participants will be immersed in a virtual map of their town that will be made up of 3D models and audio stories captured on location. They will also have the opportunity to explore further stories via bespoke virtual reality experiences.
Professor James Bennett, Director of StoryFutures and StoryTrails, said: “StoryTrails is a massively ambitious project as we travel across the UK to discover unknown, surprising and intriguing stories from local communities. We’re excited to work with local creative talent like Grace and Sian to uncover and bring these hidden histories to life, creating a new sense of belonging and immersing audiences in an amazing new way to see themselves, their communities, their towns and country.”
TV presenter and historian Professor David Olusoga, Executive Producer for StoryTrails, said: “I am thrilled to be working with StoryFutures to help bring about change in the diversity of our creative industries. By enabling 50 diverse creative voices to create compelling stories that combine past, present and future through the magic of immersive technologies, we’ll be mapping a new path for creativity in this country. StoryTrails will set the public’s imagination alight with experiences that use the poetry of history to inspire a new vision of our future.”
For further details visit story-trails.com and via Facebook and Instagram @StoryTrailsProject and Twitter @StoryFuturesA and @StoryFutures
