November 2022 Update from IRIS
IRIS in Mexico City for our first Story of the Story Session & Requiem for Justice 2022
Notes from the Story of the Story workshop, captured by Osama Manzar.
Fall 2022 has ushered in a new hybrid reality for IRIS, where virtual and IRL activities are coming online side by side. For IRIS, a week in Mexico City allowed us to work together in person for the first time since we launched in Summer 2021. As the world anticipated crucial elections in Brazil and the United States, with COP27 on the horizon and on-going conflicts in regions around the world, #RequiemForJustice 2022 brought us together. The Requiem was organized by MENA-based grantee Action for Hope as part of its global south network of 25 grassroots organizations engaged in cultural relief, called Landscapes of Hope.
The second biannual #RequiemforJustice event saw an expanded group of cultural and civil society partners from more than 15 countries to showcase the role of art in buoying those working for justice, addressing injustice and setting a course for a better future. IRIS hosted an intimate cohort of Requiem participants in our first Story of the Story session. Designed as a participatory learning space, participants considered how they could tell their *own* story to key interest groups to mobilize new or stronger support.
Both presenters and participants came away with a renewed commitment to work together, learn from each other, support each other and tell our stories with confidence, curiosity and compassion. In the words of author and participant Harsh Mander, “Time is elastic. You can live as intensely as you believe you need to.” Our own stories help fuel those carrying us forward.
— Cara Mertes, Founding Director of IRIS
Purposeful joins the IRIS blogosphere!
As they turn five and launch their ambitious 2023 research agenda, our partners at Purposeful have also come on-board to author IRIS’ first @Large Content blog post.
Celebrating a win during a Circle of Us energizer in Sierra Leone. Photographer: Kwame Lestrade.
An organization working in the global south at the cutting edge of directly resourcing young women and girls in order to support their agency, Purposeful are co-designers with IRIS of Circle of Us, a new visual storytelling fellowship in development with its first cohort of 20+ feminists from Sierra Leone, Kenya and Tanzania. IRIS invited Purposeful’s Tana Forrest, Jody Myrum and Emma Mulhern to showcase using feminist principles to learn (and unlearn) in the organization’s role as hub for girls’ activism. Hear their take on the perils of “objectivity” and why, after a day full of sharing, learning and dancing, Purposeful is careful not to fall into “the trap of more” here.
“As we attempt to unravel narratives, we must also recognize the power we carry—as those seeking to learn from and listen to people’s stories—to perpetuate them.”
Resources Supporting #SaferStorytellers
This fall, IRIS team member Innokenty Grekov with the help of web developer Nathan Bankhead is enhancing IRIS’ #SaferStorytellers microsite, hosted by the Rory Peck Trust, by adding an expanding list of safety and security resources to the website. Intended to make a range of safety, security, protection and wellness resources visible and accessible to grantmakers and funders as well as the storytellers they support, we’ve included links to resource hubs and emergency assistance funds as well as to relocation support and safe havens.
Connecting ethical storytelling and narrative change
In his latest blog, Narrative Lead Brett Davidson reminds us to approach storytelling thoughtfully, with attention to the complexities and care that we first do no harm. While IRIS believes storytelling in its many forms is one of the most powerful tools we have for social justice, this piece highlights how well-intentioned storytelling can nonetheless have a dark side and urges us to remember that ethics play into the storytelling process as well as the story itself.
Co-creating Media for Equity and Justice
While at Ford Foundation, IRIS Director Cara Mertes supported MIT’s Open Doc Lab to conduct a ground-breaking media field study examining the history and practice of co-creation in storytelling. In the belief that the practice of co-creation can upend power structures and create future-shifting alliances, the Collective Wisdom report—authored by Katerina Cizek, William Uricchio and numerous co-authors—attracted the attention of MIT Press. Collective Wisdom is the first guide to co-creation as a concept and practice, tracing co-creation in media-making that ranges from collaborative journalism to human–AI partnerships. Cara is honored to be one of the co-authors and is attending the special book launch event in November at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2022.