Stories We Carry

Stories we Carry (Mabelle Arts, Shadowland Theatre, Newcomer Women Services Toronto)
My Role: Story Documentation Lead

Stories We Carry was a five-week arts-based workshop series that brought newcomer women together to share, create, and connect through storytelling and art. Led by Anne Barber, participants explored identity, revisited childhood memories, and reflected on cultural experiences — from the games they played growing up to the nuances of everyday life in a new country. Activities included storytelling, collaborative art-making, and mask-making, with participants performing personas in the masks they had built.

My Role: Documenting the Stories

I attended the workshops writing down the stories participants shared, and capturing the moments of collaboration and connection as they happened. The result was a set of documentation reports that give the organizations a record of what actually took place in the room, beyond attendance numbers.

One observation from a single two-hour session with eleven participants: 36 instances of engagement in activities, 27 moments of collaboration between participants, and 33 instances of shared laughter. Numbers like these are why the documentation matters — what began as a space for expression quickly became a space for connection, and that deserves to be recorded.