New immersive exhibition highlights local Bristol stories

To celebrate Local and Community History Month, the immersive storytelling group, StoryTrails, will be putting Bristol stories on the map.

Taking place at Bristol Central Library, the augmented and virtual reality experience will place the stories of Bristol locals into a virtual map of the city whilst showing 3D scans of well-known buildings and landmarks.

Two Bristol locals, Marcus Smith and Lucy Fulford, have been selected to help produce the Bristol route this year.

The StoryTrails VR experience using imagery from Steps of the Ballet Crown © BFI (1948) – photo: StoryTrails

Smith discussed his involvement in the project with StoryTrails: “I’m Bristol born and bred, so a lot of the people that I have interviewed and have taken a 3D scan of are people I know, people I’m related to, friends of friends.

“StoryTrails harnesses the magic of immersive story-telling and it’s bringing to life untold stories from the past but also the present as well, and then also people’s hopes and dreams for the future.”

One of the stories Smith recounts is that of Chris Winters, the owner of Skemers Boxing Gym in Knowle West: “He was bullied and beaten when he was a kid and now he’s an adult he’s created this boxing gym so young people never have to feel the way that he felt,” he says.

Another story comes from Sea Mills: “There’s this phone box in Sea Mills that’s been turned into a mini-museum and the floor is like a mosaic of two pence coins, because that’s how much it used to cost back in the day to make a call from a phone box.”

There are 25 stories altogether from people across the city, from Kingswood to Sea Mills, Southmead to Knowle West.

Smith hopes that StoryTrails can be used to “highlight the independent and do-it-yourself mindset of Bristol”.

Marcus Smith is one of the selected creatives across the UK to curate StoryTrails – photo: Betty Woolerton

The public will be able to experience people’s stories either through AR technology developed from the app Scaniverse, or by entering digitally created worlds using a VR headset.

50 creatives in total have been drafted in partnership with StoryFutures Academy in order to help produce StoryTrails this year.

The project has been released through a partnership between Royal Holloway, University of London academics, the National Film and Television School (NFTS) and UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, a government-funded and entirely free initiative that aims to assemble people together through immersive installations and digital experiences.

Martin Green CBE, chief creative officer of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK says StoryTrails is part of “ten ground-breaking UNBOXED projects taking place in 2022 that demonstrate the power of creative collaboration across science, technology and the arts to create extraordinary and never-seen-before public experiences.”

StoryTrails augmented reality will allow images to appear on audiences’ smartphones – photo: Nexus Studios

Director of StoryFutures and StoryTrails, professor James Bennett said: “We can’t wait to immerse the people of Bristol, in the untold stories of their own communities and beyond.”

Bristol StoryTrails will take place in Bristol Central Library on August 20-21, whilst nationally, StoryTrails will take place from July 1 – September 18 across the UK.

The project will be produced alongside a new film with contributions by historian David Olusoga, before a nationwide screening in cinemas and on BBC iPlayer.

Main photo: StoryTrails

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