In our efforts to better understand the relationship between communities’ collective self-image and their collective well-being, The Narrative Renewal Project reached out to friends and colleagues with relevant expertise. Here’s what we learned from self-described “social innovation spirit animal” Lee-Sean Huang, who currently has gigs with New York’s School of Visual Arts, Purpose.com, and HEPNOVA Multimedia.
Tell us about a situation in which you needed to understand the narrative of a community to which you did not belong. How did you do it? What did you learn from the experience?
Most of my life has been about trying to understand the narrative of communities different from my own. I have had the privilege to work in places as diverse as Japan, Brazil, and India. Or closer to home, with the UX for Good project in New Orleans. I guess being from an immigrant family (I was born in Taiwan and grew up in Arizona), learning to observe, adapt, learn, and fit into another culture was something that I grew up doing.
One thing is to literally learn the other culture’s language like I did in Japan and Brazil. And then immersing myself with that community, listening and sharing with them. Some people make sense of information and stories in different ways. Some people write to make sense of their thoughts. Or other people draw.
For me, the process of “becoming” helps me understand others. I guess the process is similar to that of an actor preparing for a new role. For example, when I was trying to understand how to tell the story of Meu Rio, the group I was working with in Brazil, I did the usual stuff of observation and ethnographic research. I learned Portuguese. I trained capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art/dance. I watched people: on the streets, at the beach, in the mall, etc. I immersed myself in the pop culture, music, movies, TV. So I guess I would call it the sponge method. Becoming Sponge Bob, haha.
To continue the actor analogy, there is also drawing from your own related, but different life experiences. For UX for Good for example, I was an outsider in New Orleans for the first time. I knew nothing of the city, but since we were working with the music community, I tapped into my own life experience playing in bands, making music, etc. to help me understand the people we were trying to design for. Similarly, went I went to India for the first time last month on a whirlwind research trip, I didn’t understand the language or culture, but since we were working in slums, I was able to draw upon my experiences from the favelas in Rio.
This is not to ignore and blur differences and lump very different communities together, but just to find a starting point from which you can draw comparisons for the sake of empathy and understanding.
Think of a community that is important to you. What are the stories that community tells about itself? What do those stories mean to you personally? Is there any way you would change them if you could?
I’ll start with my local community here in New York. My students at SVA and I have been doing work with communities in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The project is called MiLES, Made in the Lower East Side, and we are trying to figure out ways to activate the 200+ empty storefronts and lots in the neighborhood with pop-ups or other temporary cultural and commercial activations.
People obviously have lots of different ideas about what to do with these spaces, and these get told as different stories. The neighborhood has a rich immigrant history dating back 100+ years, as well as the creative artistic heritage, but it got really bad in the 70s from urban blight, and now parts are booming/gentrifying, while others remain really poor (the average household income is like half of the Manhattan median income). So depending who you are and your outlook, the story you tell may be “well, nothing really changes, or progress comes, but not for us.” But if you are from a different group, the story might be “The LES is up and coming and really hot real estate.” It’s the “yes we can” story versus the “other people can, but we can’t story.” We are still in a really early listening phase, so we are still trying to make sense of people’s stories.
So how would I change the story? I think it’s too early to tell, but maybe it’s something about getting people to expand their sense of the “we” in a story. It’s a highly diverse neighborhood, with very different worlds in close proximity that don’t really always mix, so how do we create an authentic shared story?
In the course of your professional work, what is something you have learned about the way stories are told that many others don’t seem to know? How could what you’ve learned be applied by an entire community in telling its own story?
Storytelling is an ancient artform that takes a lifetime to master, so I’m not sure I have any secrets that are unknown to others. One thing as it relates to storytelling and social change, especially in digital and transmedia contexts, is the importance of simplicity and sequencing. Complex stories can be incredibly emotionally engaging and moving, but for a story to really stick, it needs a simple hook and logline so people can understand it.
Think about the end first, and then start with a simple hook. Start with a mystery. Or drop us right in the middle of the action. But don’t milk the “crisis” too much, or else people figure that out and tune out. It’s all about the progressive reveal of a story.
This is especially important in interactive media where the technology allows for so much abundance of content and sensory overload. Also, if you want to apply the story to an entire community, the simplicity helps the message spread. Even really simple stories can work on multiple levels, for “new initiates,” and seasoned veterans of a community.
To quote Lauryn Hill, “everything is everything.” A story really is everything for a community. Stories are not just “products” of that community, but the glue and “social software” that makes that community work. So if you can new aspects to an existing story, or introduce a new story, it really changes the community.
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