Grace Banks’ interactive workshop centres itself around the art of storytelling and how each individual has a unique story to tell.
At the beginning of the workshop, Banks asks each participant to visualise a tree and then describe it to her. The responses are deeply descriptive, conjuring up everything from images of majestic willow trees brimming with gold leaves to bare and barren ones. Curiously, a couple of participants struggle to visualise one at all which enables Banks to make a very important point about how each individual has a different way of imagining and perceiving the world. Some think visually, and to some words are more pivotal.
No matter which category you fall under however, the significance which Banks places on the sheer power of the imagination is clear. As she clearly demonstrates over the night, ‘stories can take you anywhere’.
After reading out four short phrases to the participants – who each use one as a piece of stimulus for a short story – the results only serve to prove Banks’ point more. Each story, even those which start from the same idea, takes a completely different direction and is infused with each person’s own character and personal experience.
Banks’ workshop reveals that within each of us we have an ability to conjure up unique and powerful stories, all of which are infused with traces of our own selves.
Words by Rebecca Gaff
