What a line between friends. It's full of comfort, nostalgia, and frank appreciation. This line between Dudley Shearburn and Emily Wilson is just one line from the many exchanges already collected by the StoryLine Project.
StoryLine is a storytelling initiative that works to illuminate the rich diversity of voices in the Winston-Salem community and to celebrate our common humanity. This volunteer-led program uses a mobile recording studio to collect stories from the community. StoryLine believes that listening carefully to the stories of others will hep all people to see their similarities and appreciate their differences. StoryLine hopes the sharing of these stories thorugh radio will create a culture of inclusion in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in which residents thorughout the community will become more understanding, trusting, and respectful of one another.
This project exemplifies community arts at its best. Community arts projects utilize the arts to tackle a community issue. In a community where studies have been done that show Winston-Salem residents of differing backgrounds often lack bonds of trust in each other, StoryLine works to grow social capital. The stories that StoryLine collects are intended to expose to people of all backgrounds what we share in common-- friendship, family, sadness, courage, adventure, etc.
Another plus of this project is that community members are the creators of the project's contents. StoryLine's recordings are 100% indigenous to Winston-Salem because they come from our residents. And there isn't even an interviewer that guides the conversation. Instead, StoryLine invites participants to share their stories in pairs so that the two can share their memories together rather than answer questions from an interviewer. StoryLine deliberately calls each recording a "conversation" rather than an interview.
StoryLine's 35+ year old mobile recording studio (formerly an ice cream truck) roams Winston-Salem streets while preserving oral history. At the end of the recording, each pair receives a CD recording of their conversation to share their with their families and friends.
So to summarize, we have three things going on: 1. Winston-Salemites gain trust in each other by listening to each other's stories. 2. The creators of the work which we gain this trust from are community members, making each storyteller an active participant in the creation of social capital in Winston-Salem. 3. Local people have the direct benefit of preserving their personal histories through professional studio recordings of their stories.
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