Lose yourself in interactive stories from the community surrounding Kelvin Grove Urban Village with an exhibition of digital storytelling.

As part of a project by QUT Design Lab researcher and PhD candidate Kavita Gonsalves, a network of 16 creatives have applied newly developed skills to express their lived experiences with interactive narrative.

The stories range from a student’s experience at QUT and exploring social justice activism and sustainability to migrating to Australia and combating anxiety, racism and domestic violence.

Visit the Chatty Bench website here.

The idea for the Chatty Bench originally came from a FaceBook post I received about twelve months ago. In the post, it was called Happy to Chat Bench. Outside the Exchange community centre where I work, we have a public bench where people sit with devices and headphones and hook into our free wifi. There was seldom interaction between the bench users. So I made a sign and stuck it on the bench and added ‘sit here, if you don’t mind people stopping to say hello’. To my delight, the community responded positively and before long the sign became a talking point. We took this humble idea and, in collaboration with Kavita (QUT Design Lab) and Sam (Village Church), have turned it into this fun, digitally-based project called Chatty Bench Project. We hope that, in the future, colourful Chatty Benches will be scattered throughout Kelvin Grove Village to encourage the community to sit awhile and get to know their neighbours.

Cait Wildman | Communify