tenantspin has been traveling round North Liverpool for some time now developing digital story-telling sessions with our partners Breckfield and North Everton Neighbourhood Council, Anfield, Breckside Community Council and individuals from across the breadth of this diverse and ancient suburb.

The resulting stories have been a rich tapestry of human life and endeavour from the tales of a 94 year old woman, who has lived in the neighbourhood all her life and remembered, amongst many other things, the time she was conscripted to build breach-blocks for sten guns in World War 2 to a scouse miner, a sailor, an evacuee, tales of work, happiness and above all what it has been like to grow up and in some cases grow old in the heart of a suburb so famed for its football connections, cakes, parks and rows of densely packed terraced streets.

You can view some of the stories at the North Liverpool digital story-telling channel on youtube here or have a listen to our audio boo collected voices here collected during the workshops described by Jon Turton in his post above.

Alan Kelly is a member of tenantspin, in particular our North Liverpool Digital Stories Group. We recently held a webcast to celebrate the launch of Kevin Casey’s recent publication ‘Closing Time’ which documents the decline of the Liverpool Pub over the last 3 years.

As a response to the book Alan has written the below review from the perspective of a citizen who has seen the decline of the pub over his life.

“A picture speaks a thousand words. The saying could not be more appropriate to explain the subject matter of this book. The photography is a stunning reminder of days long gone.

Read on…

Below is a bibliography for North Liverpool Digital Stories screened at Bluecoat, Liverpool Jan 2011. Its a bit long to display here so hit the jump to see it in all its glory.

Read on…

The inaugural North Liverpool Digital Story Group after almost a year of working together has completed its creative programme. In that time the tenantspin group; consisting of several elderly members of the Anfield/Breckfield community along with project leaders; has produced an assortment of short film’s documenting the personal stories and anecdotes of participants. The group set out to create an archive of ‘Digital Stories’ intended to record a local, social history through actual members of the Anfield/Breckfield community.

The films produced have varied in content. The narrative of each digital story has been subject to the wishes of the story teller. Project leaders Laura Yates, Jonathan Turton and Pauline Rowe have primarily assisted with articulation and technological production, with the idea’s for the films growing organically from discussion. Themes have ranged from working life to family and child hood, heroes and friends, to general gripes and opinion, but always with a Liverpool flavour. The films adhere to the creative ‘rules’ of the ‘Digital Story’ as established by the BBC upon creation of the concept. All of the ‘Mini-Movies’ are roughly two minutes long using approximately 12 images in each and aim to tell a personal story of an individual supported by still and moving image.

Read on…

We have been working with a fantastic group of people in Helsinki as part of a project for Media Facades Europe 2010.

We have met many wonderful people in the m-cult centre and in the Kontula neighbourhood of Helsinki.

The group are all part of the Symppis centre in Kontula, Helsinki a place which helps (on a day centre basis) people with substance misuse issues get help, play a game of pool, take part in a creative project like a play, have a cheap meal, get some councelling, with clothing and a place to find rest.

Read on…

We are continuing our work in Anfield/Breckfield and have started our growing interventions in St David’s Road. Progress has been slow, mainly impeded by red tape and planning allowances. Never-the-less we got together with a group of lovely ladies from St David’s Road to start our work with productive hanging baskets. The baskets included pak-choi, lettuce, radish, tumbling toms, strawberries and various herbs, workshops where run by tenantspin member Jennifer Welch and was the start of our work with residents in this road.

Work will continue with some defensive planting, technology and webcams so watch this space!!

More images can be found on Jennifers flickr page.