The Story Center: Storytelling Techniques | Joe Lambert (Fall Colloquium)

Location: Bauer Wurster Hall (formerly Wurster Hall), Landscape Courtyard

Joe Lambert (left) & Brooke Hessler (right)

Presentation:

On Monday, August 30, StoryCenter Executive Director Joe Lambert and Media Artist Brooke Hessler joins Future Histories Lab to launch our fall 2021 Colloquium: Techniques and Technologies of Place-Based Storytelling. Brooke and Joe presents from their well of experience in teaching storytelling and creating space for others to articulate stories, as well as ground us in elements of story and authorship that will serve as a foundation for the rest of the semester. 

About StoryCenter: Through programs and public workshops, StoryCenter provides individuals and organizations with skills and tools that support self-expression, creative practice, and community building. The founders of StoryCenter were influenced by the artistics movements of the 1970s and 80s that pluralized art and expression to be accessible to all, not just those gifted or professional. They storytelling gave powerful voice to harm, healing, and hope during social and political upheaval. During the 1990s, a group of Bay Area artists came together to explore digital media tools and eventually evolved into StoryCenter in 2015. Since 1993, StoryCenter has worked with nearly a thousand organizations world-wide and helped over 20,000 individuals share their stories. 

About the speakers:

Born and raised in Texas, Joe has been active in the Bay Area arts community for the last 25 years as an arts activist, producer, administrator, teacher, writer, and director. In 1986, he co-founded Life On The Water, a successful nonprofit production company that served San Francisco’s diverse communities. Almost ten years later, with then-wife Nina Mullen and colleague Dana Atchley, Joe founded StoryCenter (formerly the Center for Digital Storytelling). Joe has produced over 500 shows, ranging from theatrical runs and single performances, to citywide festivals and digital story screenings. Prior to his career in the arts, he was trained as a community organizer and assisted in numerous local, statewide, and national public policy campaigns on issues of social justice and economic equity. BA, Theater and Political Science, University of California at Berkeley.

Brooke Hessler, Ph.D. is Director of Learning Resources at California College of the Arts, where she teaches courses in writing and multimodal composition and learns more every day about verbal, nonverbal, and transverbal meaning-making. She collaborates with peer coaches, faculty, and staff to help students build and communicate their knowledge and creative vision—in and beyond their campus communities. For over 20 years Brooke has worked as a community literacy activist and educator, helping people tell their stories, finding more ways to listen.

Learn more about upcoming speakers here.

Future Histories Lab offers community-engaged, project-based courses. Dig into hidden local histories and envision better futures in our exciting courses focused on social justice, race, place, and the arts. Take just three courses (in summer or other times) and earn a Certificate in Urban Humanities.