I was excited to hear of an upcoming project that is very close to how I imagine a good wikumentary would work: Our Stories, In Focus - A Community Art and History Project.



I will be volunteering at the Carrboro workshop Saturday March 28th.

While it's great that these workshops are being conducted, they're still a couple steps away from what I'd like to see. The problematic part is that people will be offering all these wonderful, personal artifacts to be digitized...and then control over them is immediately ceded to the two artists mentioned in the blurb. While I'm sure these artists will treat their subjects with the utmost respect, I still think it's a disempowering methodology. Why not give our community members the power to create their own art out of these mementos?

This problem is very similar to one I discussed in a previous post in relation to a project hosted by the Duke Center for Documentary Studies: How Much Community Input is Enough?

Nevertheless, I'm really glad this is happening. It indicates that there is enough interest in these kinds of ideas here in my own community to take things to the next level!

A story about Our Stories, In Focus is at the Chapel Hill News.

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