During August and September, seven storytelling nights in different places around the Kvarken archipelago, will be arranged by the StoryTagging project together with two projects from Kvarken World Heritage association: The man and the land uplift project and Creative Kvarken project. Participants will experience stories from the Kvarken archipelago during the storytelling nights. Each evening has its own location and theme. The participants can also share their own stories during the nights.
Project planner for Creative Kvarken Fia Antus, project leader for StoryTagging Ann-Sofi Backgren, and project manager for Creative Kvarken Piia Orava are the organisers for the storytelling nights.
– You can say that a storytelling night is like a local history lesson, a trip back in time, where we can collectively reminisce with each other’s help, and where everyone can contribute if they feel like it. Everyone can learn something from our common natural and cultural heritage by taking part in a storytelling night, says Ann-Sofi Backgren, project leader for StoryTagging.
On Monday August 15th, the storytelling night was arranged at Kvarken Boat Museum in Maalahti. There were around thirty participants who drank coffee and ate donuts while listening to stories about maritime transport and shared their stories themselves. In the beginning, the participants were quite cautious, but eventually more and more people started sharing their own stories.
Karl David Långbacka was one of the storytellers in Maalahti.
The stories were, among other things, about the traffic across Kvarken in a historical perspective, steam engine journeys, peasant sailing, and old tall tales that made everyone laugh. The storytelling nights have different storytellers for each evening. In Maalahti, it was Karl David Långbacka, former lecturer in history, and Jessica Morney, reporter at Yle, who were the storytellers for the night.
Jessica Morney was the other storyteller in Maalahti.
– By organising the storytelling nights, the StoryTagging project, together with the other two projects, want to highlight the strength that stories have. They can function as a new interesting local learning environment but also as an inspiration for new business ideas based on our cultural and natural heritage, says Backgren.
The storytelling nights are arranged every Monday until September 12th. Until September 16th, you can also write down short local location-based stories (max. 500 words) or record them (max. 4 minutes) and send them to ann-sofi.backgren@kvarken.org.
Briefly about the project:
The Kvarken Council participates in the international “StoryTagging” project, which aims to preserve stories connected to our cultural and natural heritage. By bringing to light our stories, we wish to attract visitors to the birthplace of the stories and products. Stories from all over the Kvarken region will receive visibility. The Kvarken Council acts as project partner on the Finnish side, whereas Region Västerbottens Turism answers for activities on the Swedish side.
