d'Art of digital storytelling: How to approach scholarly research through a creative lens

About the workshop:

d’Art of Digital Storytelling: is a hands-on, co-creative workshop where the participants learn through making a short film using their phones (or other devices) and readily accessible editing software. From concept to screen, this three-hour workshop is intended to offer a hands-on introduction to capturing, curating, and framing a narrative. Using CERC Migration’s i am… digital storytelling films as examples and a few simple storytelling exercises, the workshop will guide the participants through the nuts and bolts of structuring the story, framing the narrative, and editing it all together into a curated visual document or short film. From permissions to equipment, software to post-production, we will explore the following:

• What is the story?
• Why does it need to be captured?
• Who is the story?
• Where do you capture it?
• When do you capture it?
• How do you frame it?

About the workshop leader:

Cyrus Sundar Singh is an AcademiCreActivist (external link) , a Gemini award-winning filmmaker, scholar, composer, singer-songwriter and published poet. He arrived in Toronto as a fresh-off-the-boat 10-year-old from India and almost embraced the winter. His doctoral dissertation, Performing the Documentary, explores site-specific live-documentary. From Wounded Knee to Île de Gorée, Cyrus’s research and productions have taken him to countries around the world, including Senegal, India, Israel, Spain, Haiti, Jamaica and Sri Lanka. From the award-winning National Film Board debut Film Club (external link)  (2001) to the site-specific live-documentary world premieres: Brothers In The Kitchen (external link)  (2016) and Africville in Black and White (external link)  in 2017–18, Cyrus's work represents a nascent hybrid of co-creative methodology. 

A Research Fellow with CERC Migration, Cyrus successfully co-produced, and mentored the  i am…  (external link) storytelling project (2021):of short-films exploring identity and belonging produced by 28 graduate students from across Canada — all working from within their individual pandemic bubbles. In 2022, Cyrus repeated this national success with Under the Tent, —18 creative projects unpacking Canadian Multiculturalism. Presently, Cyrus is leading and mentoring the third iteration called WhereWeStand.

His recent publications include: Brothers in the Kitchen: A multidisciplinary look at migration through live-documentary (2024); “i am: circular questions of identity” in Canada Watch (external link)  ( 2022); Lines in the Sand: A Triptych of Resistance (2022); Floating to the Lure of the Promised Land in Refuge in Canada: Narratives of Dislocation (external link)  (2021); How We See: The Colourization of Race in Gnosis: Journal of Philosophy  (external link) (2020). Cyrus’s photo/video installation Emancipation2Africville (external link)  formed part of the Africville: A Spirit that Lives On-A Reflection Project  (external link) at the MSVU Art Gallery in Nova Scotia (2019) and foot[age] at WC2 Symposium Toronto (2018) and the Bata Shoe Museum (2015–17).

Our workshops are often oversubscribed, and we maintain a waiting list. We ask that you please cancel your registration if you are no longer able to attend. We appreciate your understanding.