We curate oral history projects that amplify local knowledge, share powerful stories, & ask what is possible
“To be a storyteller is to recognize, break apart, and critically reshape the stories of our communities and our world.” -Tsering Lama, Storytelling Advisor, Greenpeace International
We produce oral history projects. Sometimes, we initiate a project with the guidance of a team of advisors and collaborators. Other times, our projects grow from a community, organization, or group of people in the South Sound and beyond who want to further a shared goal or vision for the future. In these cases, we serve as a "story midwife," convener, steward, or facilitator.
Community Care & Engagement
We are so grateful for the many relationships we have developed with multimedia storytellers, artists, academics, community organizers, and organizations since we began our work in 2016. We've shared skills and tools, convened conversations, and created opportunities to glean wisdom from the lived experience of our neighbors, colleagues, family members, and friends.
Want to collaborate on a project? Contact Elaine Vradenburgh or Meg Rosenberg.
Current & Past Projects
Community Roots
Community Roots is an oral history project about visionaries and change-makers. It explores how people come together to make change and create new possibilities for themselves and their neighbors. It documents important organizing efforts and creative projects from the perspective of people who helped to shape them. Project participants learn interviewing techniques, gather community stories, and help activate the stories through public programming.
Contact Memory Activist, Elaine Vradenburgh, elaine@windowseatmedia.org if you are interested in participating or collaborating.
The Third Thirty
The Third Thirty is a community oral history project that invites South Sound elders to reflect and share wisdom from a moment in their lives. The project began in 2018 as a community-based learning experience offered in partnership with Senior Services of South Sound Lifelong Learning Program. Participants learned the art and practice of oral history, built their listening and interviewing skills, and considered the ethical issues of gathering and sharing other peoples’ stories. They invited someone they admired to participate in an interview and then we shared edited versions of those interviewed at public readings at the end of the course. The Third Thirty has since evolved into a dynamic community-driven storytelling project that involves many creative collaborators and partners.
Contact Memory Activist, Elaine Vradenburgh, elaine@windowseatmedia.org if you are interested in participating or collaborating.
Stories of Food, Food as Story
Our Foodways workshop series invites participants to explore their history and cultural heritage through food traditions. When we revisit the past with curiosity, humility, and care, it can create opportunities to listen for new or deeper meaning, even in the most enduring stories and traditions. Through a community-based oral history interviewing process, participants build and deepen relationships with people they love, share their own stories through creative products, and eat delicious food along the way!
Contact Memory Activist, Elaine Vradenburgh, elaine@windowseatmedia.org if you are interested in participating or collaborating.
InhaleExhale
InhaleExhale is a multimedia, multidisciplinary conversation series about death and dying curated by Window Seat Media in collaboration with local artists, organizations, and groups.
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InhaleExhale conversation series began in the fall of 2019 and is currently on pause. Check back for details or contact Memory Activist, Elaine Vradenburgh, elaine@windowseatmedia.org.
Voices from the Harbor
Relationships, networks, memory, storytelling - all contribute to what makes a community work. The primary goal of Voices from the Harbor was to put the Grays Harbor region’s history to work as a community development tool. Some of the project’s core assumptions are that, if you know what to look for, a walk down the street can reveal the history of a community, a neighbor’s memory can provide insight into the lessons and experiences of a generation of citizens. By creating a space for community conversations about the evolution of the Harbor, we hope to add critical perspective to development efforts intended to solve contemporary issues like affordable housing and homelessness.
The Voices from the Harbor event series was co-produced by Window Seat Media and The Evergreen State College and was funded by Humanities Washington. It took place in 2017 in Grays Harbor County.
Preserving Working Farms
We offer multimedia storytelling services to help organizations raise awareness and funds. This collection of stories we produced (between 2015-2017) with organizations that are working to preserve working farmland and educate eaters about the challenges farmers face when producing food for local markets.
Voices from the Tidelands
Voices from the Tidelands was an exhibit about geoduck farming in the South Puget Sound from the worker’s perspective. This project features three young men who are learning the trade. From the perspective of these newcomers, these panels explore how they find daily meaning in their work, and develop a relationship to our natural environment through working - as opposed to recreating or living - on the water.
This project was produced in partnership with Northwest Folklife and with funding from the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association. The 4-panel exhibit was on display at Northwest Folklife's Washington Works Exhibit, Olympia Art Walk, and a legislative reception hosted by the Pacific Shellfish Growers Association.
