First Reading Event: Anonymous; Reading, Narrative and Memory
'Anonymous' was the first live participatory reading event from What’s the Story? Collective. Held on the 25th November 2008 in Rialto, this event marked the first public engagement from the Collective. Having explored personal stories involving power relationships for a number of months, the Collective constructed an intimate event with an invited audience of 60 people to participate in reading and responding to a selection of stories of the group. Seated in a triangular format were 20 young people from Rialto, 20 Youth and Community Workers and Sociologists and 20 individuals from the Art Sector, who all participated in a choreographed journey of individual and group readings. This event marked the first in a series of live reading events from What’s the Story? Collective
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Second Reading Event: The Day in Question
What was noticeable in the first event and the subsequent film was the amount of stories gathered that dealt with young people's sense of powerlessness with the police. There emerged a common theme of young people feeling constantly judged and unjustly treated by Gardai. In response to this overwhelming common experience, the collective wanted to create a meaningful event to respond directly to this issue and made a proposal to Chief Superintendant John Twomey to hold a second reading event with members of An Garda Siochana. The primary goal of the Collective was to temporarily shift the power dynamic between young people and the police and create a moment in time when at the very least, young people would be truly heard by Gardai. They also hoped this event would have an affect on the participating Gardai and influence their behaviour when engaging with young people in the future. After much negotiation between the collective and the Chief Superintendant and 2 Sergeants, the conditions were in place for the collective to create their second participatory reading event.
Held in The Irish Museum of Modern Art in July, the event titled 'The Day in Question' brought together 26 Gardai from the South Dublin City stations to engage in a meaningful exchange with the Collective, watched on by a group of invited 'witnesses' . The event had 2 parts. Firstly it involved the re-telling of 13 personal but anonymous stories from young people in Rialto by individual Gardai who stood up one after another and read aloud young people's personal accounts detailing experiences with Gardai. This powerful and emotional journey though stories was filmed. Once complete, the cameras were turned off and an hour long discussion ensued between the collective and the Gardai on the issues arising. At the end the 'witnesses' who included community workers, sociologists, artists and young people, who had actively watched and listened to the readings and dialogue, were invited to respond.
Delivering the stories in this manner was not an attempt to slander the Gardai, rather many of the stories were fair in acknowledging the complexities of the situations young people find themselves in. The intention was to take a risk and lay bear these young people 's stories, allowing the Gardai to hear and empathise with honest heartfelt painful experiences that continued to have a damaging effect on them. One risk was met with another; The Gardai entered this unknown space and agreed to read aloud these challenging accounts leaving themselves equally vulnerable.
The event succeeded in humanising both young people and Gardai and through the readings and discussion, each got a better understanding of the other's position. There was no consensus emerging, nor was it the aim. Rather, the experience was highly emotive and highlighted some of the main issues that face young people and Gardai in their daily lives. There is no doubt that everyone who attended the event was brought through an intense experience that had different levels of affect. For the young people who contributed their stories to the event, they were very much heard in that moment on the day by the Gardai present. Whether it has a knock on affect on policing is to be seen, but the chief Superintendant has indicated that the Gardai are now interested in developing their own initiative in response to the event that would bring together other groups of young people from Dublin with their local Gardai. The collective are also continuing to develop their work, having made a film of the event and are developing ideas to re unite those who attended the event for a follow up experience next year. They are also working on a new project based on the stories of Lithuanian young people living in Dublin and recently travelled to Vilnius to launch a new film based on these stories of migration.
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