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Ready to Roll! It’s the Going Places: Memoryscapes bus tour 

Stemming from a 10-week workshop this winter at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Communication Studies Professor Elizabeth Miller and the team at research initiative Mapping Memories have been gathering stories from seven individuals impacted by a refugee experience who call Montreal home. And now, they’ve transformed their stories – gathered on audio and video – into the Going Places: Memoryscape bus tour.

“It’s a story booth on wheels,” says Miller.

Climb aboard and hear the story of Zimbabwean immigrant Ayanda Dube, whose first Canadian stop was the YMCA on Drummond St. “…with a suitcase and a ton of hope.” Visit a Vietnamese grocery store in the Côtes-des-Neiges neighbourhood where Congolese Marie-Francoise Ilunga Sitnam shops for ingredients to create a meal that tastes like home. Experience the Montreal Rwandan commemorative walk through the eyes of two young Rwandan women.

It’s these types of accounts that will guide participants through the city for two to three hours, giving a perspective into the past, the present, and personal memories to public spaces that often goes unseen.

“These personal stories are powerful bridges to an understanding of the bigger story,” says Miller. “When you are moved by a story, you’re also often moved to learn more about the wider context, or other times you are moved to reach out, to get involved.”

Going Places is not only a participatory media project, but also a community–university collaboration. The project is part of the SSHRC-funded Mapping Memories research initiative (Miller serves as principal investigator), the Communities-Universities Research Alliance (CURA) Life Stories project, and the YWCA of Montreal.

“This truly is a collaborative effort, building both academic knowledge and community engagement,” says Miller.

Life Stories will also have an ongoing exhibit that gives the big picture of the oral history research being conducted at Concordia. In three rooms on the third floor of the MB Building (3.231, 3.233 and 3.235), delegates can experience the stories through video and audio interviews, through their web platform, as well as their purpose-developed software called Stories Matter (see Journal, Nov. 26, 2009). The rooms will be open throughout Congress.

Miller will also be presenting one of the Going Places stories as part of the morning session of the Congress event, Human Rights Day, on May 28 (see Journal, Feb. 11, 2010) to discuss how to use digital stories for advocacy.

Tours will leave May 30 at 1 p.m. and June 1 at 2 p.m. from the Shuttle Bus stop outside the Hall Building. No reservations are required, but seating will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. The tour will be followed by a reception on the third floor of the MB Building. For more information, see the website.