Listen to Our Stories podcast
Listen to Our Stories, a new podcast recapping the weekend of storytelling from members of the Scottish African diaspora
In late 2022, Scottish-Zimbabwean artist and researcher Natasha Thembiso Ruwona programmed an event titled Our Stories Between the Myths and Memories at David Livingstone Birthplace in Blantyre, in partnership with The Skinny. Natasha brought together a wealth of creative practitioners from the Scottish African diaspora to celebrate their contributions to the creative sector.
Natasha’s aim was to let the project speak to past, present and potential futures that examine Black Scottish history, culture and identity. And why the location? Well, it placed a spotlight on the work that David Livingstone Birthplace are doing as they consider the role of museums within truthful storytelling.
Over this four-part podcast series, produced in partnership with We Are Here Scotland and hosted by our Intersections editor Eilidh Akilade, you will experience some of the conversations, questions, creativity and reflections that came out of that weekend.
Listen to all episodes now, and click through for full transcripts of each of the episodes.
Episode 1: How we remember and reflect on the past
Read the transcript for episode one here
In this first episode, we explore how we remember and reflect on the past. What has this commission evoked for people? How have they navigated their past experiences and stories? And what questions do they have now?
Episode 2: Joining the disparate dots
Read the transcript for episode two here
In our second episode we explore the joining of disparate dots. Disparate may mean displacement, disconnection from heritage and the stories of our lives but also, how to connect old lives to new, including moving from one continent to another.
This was a strong theme over the weekend programmed by Natasha and their creative community, but we also wanted to question what are these dots? Who and what do they represent? How might they join? Do they even join? Hopefully, some of these questions will be answered, or give us more to think about.
Episode 3: The stories we tell each other and ourselves
Read the transcript for episode three here
This episode looks at one of the reasons why this podcast came together. It’s about the stories we tell each other and ourselves. When Natasha was curating this series, they said it would look at reflecting on the stories that David Livingstone Birthplace are telling, the stories artists of the African Scottish diaspora are telling, and how these can act as bridges between people.
Episode 4: Collectively Imagining Our Futures
Read the transcript for episode four here
Our final episode of this series looks at how things will play out in the future. How we collectively imagine our futures was a big theme that rose to the surface during the weekend. Throughout, we looked at imagining otherwise through care and healing.
Our Stories is presented by Eilidh Akilade, produced, recorded and edited by Halina Rifai and is in partnership with We Are Here Scotland. The live recordings were made by Hamish Campbell of Sound Sound. This series was commissioned by David Livingstone Birthplace and was made possible through funding from Museums Galleries Scotland.