Abstract:

In the contemporary mediascape, storytelling emerges as a strategic asset in several fields, resulting in what Fischer (1984) defined the ‘narrative paradigm’: the aptitude of people in communicating via storytelling and comprehending social interaction through a narrative logic. Relying on the ability of narrative to trigger emotions, memories, engagement, and action-taking, we are exploring the role of design in developing narrative systems that are capable of creating an impact on real life. Acknowledging the paramount role of stories in communication and their design, this article will describe and discuss an academic research project aims to investigate the function of sport in prison as a tool for education, training and social reintegration, involving three university Departments: Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, and Department of Design.

The focus of the article is on the work conducted by a research group at the Department of Design, aiming at activating processes of co-design, participatory video and collaborative story construction in which the distribution of story-based strategies allows the stakeholders (inmate population, penitentiary police, and public audience) to interpret and participate in the narratives with which we are all surrounded. Thus experimenting how communication, storytelling, and design move from audience engagement to real processes of cultural and narrative change (ORSIMPACT). The following are relevant questions that are guiding our research: what is the role of sports activities within the prison environments? What is the meaning of ‘living in a cage’? Questions upon which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted, opening to new core points to be considered: what can free our minds and bodies from the feeling of being caged emerged during the coronavirus outbreak? Which kind of narratives can we build together with the inmate population and the penitentiary police in order to engage the public opinion in reflecting upon the condition of deprivation of freedom that we are all experiencing during the pandemic?

Since 2013, we have challenged ourselves in defining methodologies and tools for conceiving strategic narratives through a design fieldwork based on workshop, hands-on and co-design activities. Then, at the beginning of this project, the COVID-19 emergency has reduced our possibilities of interaction with the inmate population and among the group of researchers, leading to substantial innovation in research collaboration and communication with the beneficiaries. The result is the adaptation of processes, tools and platforms, we are used to apply in our Research Through Design (RtD) practice to the field of story-design, for managing team and research projects remotely.

Since the pandemic impacted both on research and design practice, we would like to elaborate on the on-going project proposing some reflections on how we should maintain and integrate the applied processes, tools, and platforms within the story-design field, into day-to-day work in the post-pandemic era.

Keywords:

Storytelling, Story-design, Narrative Design Tool, Design Methodology, Research Through Design, Online Collaborative Process.