Young creatives from Nairobi and UK collaborate on digital stories

The Youthful cities programme culminates in immersive experiences.

The Youthful Cities Digital Storytelling Lab is a unique creative development programme that has brought together a team of young creatives and changemakers from Nairobi and The UK, particularly Coventry, in a cultural and creative skills exchange to develop two new digital stories designed to inspire change within their cities. The creatives involved in this project are filmmakers, digital artists, writers, and musicians. The Kenyans involved in the project include Millan Tarus, Tracy Mwaura, Mike W. Khakame, Analo Kanga, Naserian Koikai and Precious Narotso. James Grubb, Lanaire Aderemi, Demy Jozeph and Michael Mihoc are from Coventry.

Both teams worked collaboratively and remotely, through various stages of lockdown, across Nairobi and Coventry to create an interactive short-film ‘Our Daily Bread’ and a spatial audio experience titled  ‘Now That I Know Things’. The works will premiere on BBC Taster from 28 April, after which they will be available to experience on the website that showcases the organisation’s immersive and interactive experiences, encouraging users to share what they’ve just tried with their friends.

You can register to watch the event online here, or stream it live on YouTube.

‘Our Daily Bread’ made using BBC R&D StoryFormer explores different city themes and how they impact a young individuals’ mental health state whilst going through the hurdles of job hunting. In this experience audiences can make choices about how the story unfolds and move between scenes set in Nairobi and those set in Coventry.,‘Now That I Know Things’, made using BBC R&D’s Audio Orchestrator, follows the range of thoughts, feelings and experiences of the characters of Aisha in Nairobi and Sara in Coventry as they navigate their graduation days.  The project uses connected smart devices; laptops, tablets and phones to deliver an immersive  audio experience that listeners can explore. 

The Youthful Cities Digital Storytelling Lab is a unique partnership between Coventry City of Culture Trust, British Council, The Space and BBC R&D. Its purpose is to create new media to inspire change in Coventry and Nairobi. It is also part of a wider programme between Coventry UK City of Culture, the British Council and Youthful Cities to facilitate a cultural and creative skills exchange between young people across the globe. Other partner cities include Beirut (Lebanon), Bogotá (Colombia) and Detroit (USA). The programme celebrates cities where the citizens are activists, shaping their own futures through art, creativity, and technology.

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