Bridging the narratives

I don’t have a specific story that I would like to refer to since there are so many rather my favorite game when I was a child at primary school. Collectively kids would write a sentence on a piece of paper, fold it and hand it to the next person in order to carry on with another line. collectively a surprising story unfolds toned by every individual member and perspective.

Tainá is a creative producer working on multidisciplinary projects that produce art in social context. She is currently based in Berlin where she ran the multi-purpose project space; Agora Collective which was a center for contemporary experimentations focusing on social art practice and sustainable entrepreneurship. 

From 2016 to 2019 she has focused her time between international productions for Performance artist Isabel Lewis as well as being a close contributor to the development of 'Tales of Us' first project; 'Congo Tales'.

'What I love about Indigenous mythology is that, unlike Western thought, Amerindians don’t differentiate between humans, animals, spirits and natural elements. Natural elements are 'ex-humans’. Indigenous thought suggests that having once been human, animals and other cosmic beings continue to be human, though in a way that is not evident to us.'

Ifeatu (she/they) is a filmmaker and photographer focused on conceptual and documentary storytelling. Ifeatu works closely with communities; centring queer, feminist, and migrant narratives through an intersectional approach. Ifeatu’s work has been featured at The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Sheffield DocFest, Future of Storytelling NYC, Haus der Kulturen Welt, and Les Rencontres d’Arles. Ifeatu is a National Geographic Explorer and is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

'My favorite myth is about Ojadili, the renowned wrestler who had won every test known to man and then tried to fight his own Chi (personal God). I love the story because it connects to the fact that each person has a personal God in Igbo traditional belief. It reminds me of the Igbo proverb, "Onye kwe Chi ya ekwe", which roughly means 'things can only move forward when a person and their God are aligned.'

Ess Adjekum is a Marketing and Communications professional who earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications with a minor in Sociology at McMaster University. She is passionate about using communication to bridge gaps in Black and marginalized communities. Ess created community events like Hamilton’s First Black Hair Brunch (2018, 2019), Mental Health Conversations (2019), and the IG series Amplified (2021).

“As a first-generation Canadian of Ghanaian descent, my love of “Anansesem” Anansi The Spider and his stories keeps me connected to my Akan culture and reinforces the importance of storytelling as a way to build community.”

Kenneth (Rico) Norwood is an American film and interactive media PhD researcher. His primary academic concern is the role that Black Queer Art and its history on screen. He explores its disruption of historical narratives and chronicles how Black Queer Art and Representation (BQAR) presents an alternative history through film in his current research project. He has also written extensive work in the area of race, media, queer studies, and political criticism and has been featured in The Metro, TechRadar, Wired Magazine, Science for the People, Pink News, CineQ Queer Film Festival, and other publications and outlets that are concerned with media and cultural criticism.

'I have a deep passion for telling stories in new and interactive ways. Whether it be something that’s familiar or something totally new, I love researching, adapting, and telling various tales in unorthodox ways. Cultural mythology opens up a world of storytelling that predates Western understandings of the fable and allows us to hear multiple voices from the past.'

Anna Leevia is a Brazilian director, editor and post production manager based in Berlin. The connection between visual arts and music has been an obsession since her early years. Since graduating in Media Studies, Anna has been working with video and advertising for more than a decade across São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, London and Berlin. Her work spans across television commercials, music videos and video installations.

'I’ve always been fascinated by snakes and the symbolisms attributed to this animal by diverse cultures like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Aztecs. Growing up, I became a fan of Boitatá, a Brazilian folklore snake-like creature that spits fire on whoever dares to threaten the forests and rivers.'

I really appreciate the tale of the Nkééngé sisters, the one we called “the twins sisters” in Congo tales's project version of this episode of the saga. Not only because of the personal and existential link I have with this one, directly coming from my father's kaanda (matriclan). But also because it's an archetype, a model of congo basin's civilisations, and precisely koongo nza (universe) : women as protagonists, society as arena, family as alliance and refuge, totem animals as nkisi operators. And absolutely, the reign of nature belongs to the immanence of nza mbi, the intimate sacred field of universe, on which many bantu's African traditional religions are based.

Educator at 'Sanza Mobimba' in Mbomo.

My favourite story from the Congo Tales is the Poisoned Antelope. It is SOOOO relevant right now regarding which cultural practices maintain and guide us and which ones are leading us to our demise. This tale inspires me, I wish more people would read it, then we could have a basis for a discussion about changes that need to be made.

Line producer

Curt is an actor and director. Working with children for more than three years in the context of television productions, inspired Curt to start writing children books. In 2014, he released his first book called “Yakanuko” and won the “Hotze de Roos” award for best book of the year. After that, two more children books followed: “The Giant Snake” and “Bird & Sheep”. In 2016 Curt produced his first theater show. He adapted the books “Yakanuko” and “Bird & Sheep” for main stage and live performance.

'We’re all creatures set off to explore the world, our lives and each other in order to share everything we experience with those we love and care about. We go through life in search of those little things which we make great by telling them over and over again. It's what binds us together. It’s what will keep us connected. It’s what makes us happy. It’s our story.'

Journalist and educator at 'Sanza Mobimba' in Mbomo.

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Ani & Mouendet are both journalists living in Mbomo and running radio Odzala, of which Ani is the director. They supported our project with extensive research and the collecting of stories.

Wilfried N’Sondé is a musician living in Berlin. He is also an author and has written the highly acclaimed Cœur des enfants léopards (2007), for which he was awarded the prix des Cinq Continents de la francophonie and the prix Senghor de la création littéraire; Le Silence des esprits (2010) and Fleur de béton (2012).

Educator at 'Sanza Mobimba' in Mbomo.

Linguist, professor and scholar specialised in Congolese Oral history. Miabeto has supported our project with story research.

Manuela is a journalist who started her career in marketing communications and then moved to PR as part of Nike's first Influencers Marketing team. After working in advertising agencies and a music festival, she decided to open her own company, Rahall PR. Over the past years, she became interested in emerging technologies and started consulting for projects involving VR, AR and multi-platforms. Gathering 15 years of experience in the market, she added the games and electronic sports segment into the menu. Manuela’s main strength is people and has recently joined forces with the newkinco squad to explore this whole new universe composed of metaverses, crypto, gaming and NFTs vibes.

'I grew up hearing Middle Eastern myths from my grandfather - he was my favourite person in the whole world and he was born in Lebanon. I remember the smell of the food and also the colours of the blankets that he used to build a hut where I could go to hear stories of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and the “Adventures of Ben-Hur” over and over again. I consider it a true blessing to be part of the Tales Of Us project because I am sure that the tales that I heard as a child helped to create part of my personality and definitely developed my creativity. All children deserve this.'

With over 10 years of experience as an agile coach, consultant and social entrepreneur, Pedro is developing and implementing organisational transformation processes grounded in innovation management and IT planning.

'Mythology fascinates me because it is as if it operates as a metaphor for universal ideas that connect human beings all over the world, something like subconscious collective dreaming. E.g At the same time, while dragons are probably the single most important mythical creatures in Chinese culture, they are traditionally seen as evil and nasty creatures in the West. How incredible is it that the same image can have such a different meaning? And still, whatever, both pictures of both contexts connect to universal human cosmologies. I am gladly a collaborator from Tales because this project attempts to give voice to stories that expand our understanding, giving voice to those who contribute to new images and expand our knowledge and experience of ourselves in a gentle, inclusive, and heterodox manner.'

Whether written or transmitted orally; tales and legends are fertile ground for the imagination. They allow the visual development of concepts as complex as they are exciting; such as love and hate, joy and fear, life and death.

The association of words such as: a rainbow snake, a crystal shoe, a flying carpet... open up infinite fields of plastic possibilities as easily as a magic formula.

If the tales find their origins in the limbo of humanity, drawing is for me an expression deeply linked to childhood and which accompanies me in my adult life. I realised that in the end; each tale, each fable, even a popular saying of a few words could fascinate me because by illustrating them, I make them mine and can transmit them.

However, if I had to choose only one, I would take without hesitation the story of Scheherazade, who night after night postpones her mortal sentence to the next day, leaving her stories in suspension. Telling stories made her life a legend.

The Lion King was (and still is) one of my favourite childhood stories. I remember pretending to be lions with one of my friends a lot, and have vague recollections of reenacting the Mufasa/ Scar cliff scene down the stairs.

A story is a playful attempt at making sense of the world, for ourselves and others. As Susan Sontag brightly reflected, storytelling transmutes factual knowledge into wisdom. Living beyond the binary of reality and fiction, personal and universal, storytelling is (to me) a practice of freedom.

I grew up immersed by my own curiosity and channelled all this energy since I was little into reading books. All the stories I was reading opened my mind and were like a seed to encourage me to navigate through my own creativity. Until today I have deep connections, not only with the memories about that time of my life, but also with the feelings the storytellings sparked inside me. Narratives have the power not only to educate or inform, they can also transform perspectives and make you move to new directions. I still carry a copy of Peter Pan with me everywhere I go and in an instant I access my precious place: my own mind.