The Soups&Stories Project is a social and dialogue based art and research project. We try to introduce forms of interaction and creating alternative forums for discussion about socio political topics. Thereby gaining insights which differ from those of our media saturated society. We facilitate space and methods to gather people with varying backgrounds to share their personal stories while eating soup together. Our shared stories revolve around personal experiences and how we relate or react to diversity, current events and circumstances. Events vary from discourse in private spaces to gatherings in the public space, usually in conjunction with festivals or other public events.
WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO:
Open dialogue invites and encourages participants to become more conscious about what is really going on around us, giving us more choices and influence on how we interact within the community, potentially increasing our capacity to constructively use the potential arising from increasing diversity. Soups&Stories is an approach and method to facilitate living with growing societal diversity, focusing on democracy, freedom of speech, tolerance and respect. The approach and methodology has the potential to be integrated into other societal areas. Dialogue based projects are open processes which will play an important role in an innovative and foresightful global development in the face of large shifts in demographics.
Against the backdrop of the unequal distribution of political, economic, military and cultural power, dialogue based art is a method we use to explore how we as artists can exert a positive influence locally and globally. We propose new forms of interaction and communication in today’s Europe: with its growing right-wing radicalisation, where people in power actively use propaganda to create enemy images. Important questions for us individually and collectively: How do we respond to increasing diversity while staying true to ourselves? How do we create and maintain harmonious community with room and respect for individual preferences and peculiarities? Further the project will focus on the fact that we are the result of the society in which we were raised. Our social circles are basically comprised of people who believe the same things we do. Fostering interaction between disparate social groups introduces us to different lifestyles, value systems and experiences which have consequences for social interaction, eventually leading to a broader conception of the present and the past.
METHODS OF WORKING:
We sit in a circle to emphasize the flat and democratic structure, non of us are designated experts, we are not looking for a academicals approach, we are surging for the personal voice, because t is powerful and important and should be given space and attention. Society is nothing without people and people is less without their local community. We use a talking object, the person who is talking is holding the talking stick. The rhythm of the object passing makes time for reflection and give concentration to the room. We take our time because this is a practice of listening and thinking while talking.
What we bring forward to the conversation will aggregate into awareness of the other and tru the method we learning about the art of dialogue.
Soups&Stories is at the intersection of artistic, traditional and scientific/academic methods. Our methods are influenced by dialogue theorist David Bohm and Helge Svare, as well as of dialogue tools derived from the methodology of The Art of Participatory Leadership + Traditional Methods.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND:
This social and dialoguebased art project was initiated in 2012, and is run by the artists Katrine Meisfjord and Gitte Sætre. For the last years a group of artists and academics has been part of the project, and has been co-developing it into what it is today. Participants are: Tonje Indrøy, Torill Wanvik, Mekdes Shebeta, Shahnaz Amin Haaq, Rita Agdal, Kwestan Jamal Bawan og Solvei Stoutland
Prosjektet er støttet av: Kunsthall 3.14,Kunstløftet, Bergen kommune, Vederlagsfondet og Hordaland Fylkeskommune
