Story Research Group

Story making across artistic forms
Storyboard for the Story Research Group
Brandon Barnard, 2023
Stories connect us to ourselves and to others and, in that process, have the power to change the world. Valuing stories as a primary source of understanding requires us to be sensitive to how they are made and shared and the impact this has on our pasts, presents and futures. We need to be good storytellers to create healthy, inspiring, inclusive and sustainable lives for ourselves, others and our environments. 

What we do

The Story Research Group works playfully and creatively across narrative methods and formats, including film and animation, performance and literature, soundscapes, immersive experiences and games. We explore everything from the foundations to the future of storytelling in imaginative and real-world environments and care about how stories empower and create realities.
Our inclusive and collaborative approach uses experimental, speculative, interdisciplinary and participatory methods to make stories that express diverse voices and perspectives and engage a wide range of audiences. We are a connective tissue between any research interest in the University where story forms a part and we work with communities, organisations, industry and more through research consultancy, partnership and collaboration. 
Contact the Story Research Group Co-leads: Dr Hannah Wood and Dr Dylan Yamada-Rice
 

Research areas

  • ?Story and place

  • ?Story and play

  • ?Narrative forms and functions

  • ?Participatory practice

  • ?Future screens

  • ?Interaction and immersion

  • ?Social making

  • ?Story and health

  • ?Design practices

  • ?Moving image

  • ?Literature

  • ?Performance

  • ?Music and sound

  • ?Games

  • ?Photography

  • ?Illustration

  • ?Analogue and digital

  • ?Experimental storytelling

  • ?Experiential storytelling

Explore our research projects

Imperfect Cinema

A socio-participatory venue for film, sound and the moving image, founded by filmmakers Dr Allister Gall and Dan Paolantonio in 2010, Imperfect Cinema has produced and facilitated the creation of more than 700 new film works, micro-cinema events, film festivals, symposia, and screenings. The project has developed work with a focus on engaging with local audiences and supporting new voices. 
Since the beginning, Imperfect Cinema has utilised an open and inclusive methodology. This is largely realised through an anyone-can-participate framework, drawing from the non-hierarchical ideas of DIY culture and punk rock. By harnessing the magic, kitsch, audience involvement and carnivalesque atmosphere of early cinema, we aim to inspire, innovate and create an environment in which participants play with possibilities.
Imperfect Cinema Dom Moore
People walking in a large empty plaza in the mountains under a clear sky in black and white

Searching for Leo – Creative uses of ‘the archive’ in a place of remembering and forgetting

virtual friend - Greg Bott, 2022

Immersive Theatre – Exploring the interface between digital technologies, stage space, characters and narrative

Dystopian Government Surveillance Forest

Future UK Treescapes – Children’s dreams of future treescapes envisioned through games

Poetry

Poets Respond to COVID-19 – Using poetry to express difficult times

Glass Ceiling

Glass Ceiling Games – Embodied feminist storytelling through game mechanics

Net Zero Visions - a mural wall in Tiverton by Kate Crawfurd 

Net Zero Visions – Creatively communicating the climate emergency

Imperfect Cinema

RE/POSIT/ORY – Reframing the film archive

Feasts for the Future

Feasts for the Future – Imagining alternative presents and better futures

The Secret Listener

The Secret Listener

 

Postgraduate taught programmes

Research opportunities
 

Our researchers

Facilities supporting our research

 

Research in the School of Art, Design and Architecture

Our researchers work across the arts and humanities fields, from fine arts to game design to architecture and environmental engineering. We have particular strengths in interdisciplinary collaboration from a local to a global scale to advance knowledge and catalyse change. The focus of research in the School is on addressing global and societal challenges, and researchers are actively engaged with stakeholders outside the University context to contribute to meaningful and tangible impact for people, the environment, and communities.
Four Tet performs in the midst of a Squidsoup light installation in 2019 (courtesy: Rikard Osterlund/Squidsoup)

SHAPE disciplines address global challenges associated with marine, health and sustainability through the lens of place

Through five place-based research themes, we investigate the intricate relationships between communities, the natural world, and technology.
Locally, we co-create sustainable solutions to complex problems in order to build resilient and thriving neighbourhoods, cities, and regions. This work transcends geographical, social and political boundaries to become applicable on a global level.
 
Place-based research concept: crowd of people standing on a computer motherboard (full-bleed)
SHAPE – Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy
 
rlb night view