Schwarzman Center launches 'Storyboard' through first call for participative storytelling among Yale community

10.19.20
Ruhi Manek YC '20

Virtual storytelling platform kicks off around the theme of navigating an unprecedented moment

The Yale Schwarzman Center (YSC) made its first call for submissions through Storyboard with the launch of the new YSC website last Tuesday, encouraging students to materialize the myriad ways in which they have navigated day-to-day experiences since the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic. Entitled off the grid: projects for the moment, the prompt invites Yale makers to consider the themes of “adapting,” “resisting,” “reflecting,” “re-energizing” and “re-imagining,” as grounding tenets for creative production.

YSC executive director Garth Ross highlights, “In order to fully embrace the breadth of meaningful expression, we are seeking well-crafted and thought-provoking music, film, photography, poetry, dance, and other genres of multimedia storytelling for this prompt.”

Jennifer Harrison Newman, associate artistic director, iterates, “We are interested in students’ creative responses when considering how they are navigating space, change, and truth in an ambiguous and fluid time; to take a step back and reflect on how they are rediscovering, confronting, unlearning and relearning new normals.”

Storyboard’s inaugural prompt, off the grid: projects for the moment, is open to all Yale undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students. Entries should be submitted directly using the Storyboard uploader on the YSC website, and multiple entries will be considered. Submissions are open now through November 13, after which the YSC will announce details about an online exhibition featuring submissions.

About Storyboard

Storyboard is a virtual workshop for sharing ideas and making stories together. It is a platform where stories can emerge through call and response, as the YSC invites participation with creative prompts. It is also an interactive digital space for projects-in-process where Yale makers will have access to collaborators, a collective media library system, and the post-production resources to shape raw media into finished content. 

About the YSC

Now in development, the YSC will be transformational for Yale in providing, for the first time, a center for student life and the arts at the historic heart of the Yale University campus. In advance of its projected 2021 opening, the YSC is producing digital programs and collaborative arts experiences geared toward audiences within and beyond the Yale campus.