The open sessions at BEYOND STORYTELLING offer a space for exploration of topics, themes and methods that is filled by our participants and colleagues. The topics and themes for these sessions are proposed on site – to accomodate what is emerging during the conference and enable spontaneity.

This year, Astrid Nierhoff and Mélina Garibyan, from the StoryAtelier, offered another take on their "StoryUp your Artifact" process, inviting everyone to partake in a process reflecting our theme "Re-Authoring Futures" and co-creatively developing a short visual artifact from this.

Here is what the session was about in Mélina´s words:

During our open session „StoryUp your Artefact " at the Beyond Storytelling Conference in Hamburg we invited participants to join us for an artistic live body performance. The prompt was to think of a precise moment in life where they „re-authored“ their future, to build their story and to break it down to its core-sentence. We asked the participants to record an audio-file of their core-story and to embody it in a collective body sculpture.

The session offered participants a moment of awareness for an important, changing moment or special people in life, that planted a seed to grow.

The performance was recorded on the roof-top terrace of the Design Offices in Hamburg and edited „on the spot“ by Mélina Garibyan.

The StoryUp-process is made to create a dynamic and connecting group experience, where each participant can concentrate on important events in life, to explore different creative forms of expression (body performance, writing, acting, singing, drawing) to express the idea, to receive constructive feedback within the group and to create a collective story through the collage of all stories in the editing of a short video.

And here is the wonderful result: