The Story Swap Café

The combination of artists working on this project has been ever changing, however, some of most regular collaborators include:

 

Story collector/initial creator: Malaika Cunningham

Story collector/audio editing: Lee Affen

Story collector/designer: Sarah Lewis-Cole

Story collector: Joseph Houlders

 

Past supporters for this project include: The Canal and River Trust, Sheffield Creative Guild, The National Trust, The University of Sheffield, Theatre Delicatessen and Migration Matters Festival.

If you would like to have a Story Swap Cafe at your event, or would like to know more, please get in touch with malaika@thebareproject.co.uk.

Where the price of a drink is a story.

 

The Story Swap Cafe (or The Story Swap Tea Rooms, as it is sometimes known) has become a recurring project, and frequent methodology for story collection and building community collaborations for us. The premise is simple, we gather stories in exchange for a drink. Sometimes these are around a specific theme, often they are recorded and, at other times, they are written down. Over the years we have collected thousands of stories in this way, sometimes these are featured in our shows, at other times they are collected on behalf of a partner organisation.

 

In our first Story Swap Cafe, in Septmber 2014, we collected over 1000 stories in a month. It was clear: either people wanted to tell stories, or they really wanted free tea. Both are probably true. Since then the Story Swap Cafe has re-emerged at Migration Matters Festival, the Sheffield Creative Guild and will be touring the country alongside The People’s Palace of Possibility. 

Where the price of a drink is a story.

The Story Swap Cafe (or The Story Swap Tea Rooms, as it is sometimes known) has become a recurring project, and frequent methodology for story collection and building community collaborations for us. The premise is simple, we gather stories in exchange for a drink. Sometimes these are around a specific theme, often they are recorded and, at other times, they are written down. Over the years we have collected thousands of stories in this way, sometimes these are featured in our shows, at other times they are collected on behalf of a partner organisation.

In our first Story Swap Cafe, in Septmber 2014, we collected over 1000 stories in a month. It was clear: either people wanted to tell stories, or they really wanted free tea. Both are probably true. Since then the Story Swap Cafe has re-emerged at Migration Matters Festival, the Sheffield Creative Guild and will be touring the country alongside The People’s Palace of Possibility. 

The combination of artists working on this project has been ever changing, however, some of most regular collaborators include:

Story collector/initial creator
Malaika Cunningham

Story collector/audio editing
Lee Affen

Story collector/designer
Sarah Lewis-Cole

Story collector
Joseph Houlders

Past supporters for this project include: The Canal and River Trust, Sheffield Creative Guild, The National Trust, The University of Sheffield, Theatre Delicatessen and Migration Matters Festival.

If you would like to have a Story Swap Cafe at your event, or would like to know more, please get in touch with malaika@thebareproject.co.uk.

A selection from past Story Swap Cafes

Below you can listen to a few of the hundreds of stories we’ve collected. These are all taken from three events.

Journeys, June 2016, Theatre Delicatessen

As part of Migration Matters Festival, we collected stories about journeys great and small.

WE ARE ONE, May 2017, Yellow Arch Studios

For Sheffield Creative Guild’s first birthday party, we hosted a Story Swap Cafe around the theme of birthdays.

200 YEARS, February 2019, Victoria Quays

To celebrate the bi-centerary of the Sheffield-Tinsley Canal, we hosted a Story Swap Cafe to collect memories of the canal and visions for its future.