Visitor generated content:
children’s stories at the National Library

This is a fabulous new exhibition at the National Library of NZ, which has been co-created with children from 8 local schools. One school is featured at a time, so it’s a constantly changing exhibition.

The students were asked to choose objects that mean a lot to them, and talk about what it is that makes those things so precious. The library used Curio to link the treasures to short videos of the kids explaining the stories behind them.

Curator Tanja Schubert-McArthur got the students to tell the stories in short, semi-scripted sound bites:

“You could do this with text but video just enriches the experience. At the opening the students were all hogging the iPads to see themselves. It’s a generational thing too that people access information this way rather than by reading.”

Among Tanja’s favourite stories were the ageing guitar (patched with duct tape on the back), handed down from father to son and then to the family’s youngest brother; a simple T-shirt that connected a boy to his admired older brother who had moved away; and a teddy bear in a wheelchair, the prized possession of a young girl who herself gets around in one.

There’s more about this community-generated exhibition here.