Week 3: Kevin Gaboury response

Context. That’s the theme for this week, and the diverse projects we looked at this week are framed by the context of the human experience.
Let me just start out by saying that I love the Interview Project. It reminds me of a column by a former coworker at the Lewiston Tribune called “Everyone has a story.” He’d pick a random person out of the phone book, interview them and publish a piece every Friday. It wasn’t anything Earth-shattering — just regular people talking about their regular lives. Why, then, is it still the most popular part of the newspaper? Why do their stories matter? I’d argue it’s because stories are what make us human, and as humans we have a natural curiosity about other people.
The Interview Project also serves the broader purpose of acting as a sort of cultural artifact for this time and place in history. As David Lynch said, “It’s so fascinating to look and listen to people … It‘s something that’s human and you can’t stay away from it.”
I hope the project will live on in some form or another so 100 years from now, people can watch these interviews and see how we lived “back then.”
The Mapping Memories project gives viewers a glimpse at what it means to be a refugee. It works because it stays within the context of the experiences of refugees, while using new media to help them tell their stories in innovative ways.
“Is there a way to connect the past to the present? Without your past, who are you? And does it matter if anyone knows?”
This quote from one of the participants, a refugee from Rwanda, really reverberated with me. The genocide in Rwanda is an atrocity most of us cannot even begin to comprehend. According to Wikipedia, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutus over the course of 100 days in 1994. Within our Western frame of reference, the concepts of genocide and being forced from your home are completely foreign to us.
So, in response to her last question, I’d say it does matter. When we can put an actual face to larger issue, rather than just a death toll, I believe we’re more apt to really listen. Do you agree?

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2 comments to Week 3: Kevin Gaboury response

  • natalieb@uoregon.edu

    I definitely agree. Statistics matter, but the stories behind the statistics are what make people care about the statistics. And the stories have to have faces – people, characters – to draw people in.

  • banders3@uoregon.edu

    Maybe it’s a journalist thing, but I really enjoyed the Interview Project as well. They told compelling, short stories about regular people. I think it may be hard for some to identify with people who are changing the world with their particular project, but the people in the Interview Project were just trying to live their lives. They have made mistakes like everyone, which is something with which many people can identify.

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