Johanna Lecklin

Finland

In 2004 I worked for two months as artist-in-residence at Artsadmin in east London. During this residency I began my Story Café project. I rented a small shop in Broadway Market, decorated it, and set up a ‘café’. My idea was to offer visitors a cup of coffee in exchange for a story. The motto was ‘Tell a Story – Get a Coffee’. The ‘coffee shop’ was open for a few hours during lunchtime for ten days.

In the end I got more than 25 stories. The variety was enormous. People told me about everything – from travelogues, biblical stories, and anecdotes of unhappy childhoods to wild and dangerous adventures. I asked the storytellers for permission to film their stories. Both passers-by and live-art artists were curious about the project and happy to visit my café.

I plan to continue the Story Café project in Limerick, since the idea of an exchange and of interaction, which my project is dealing with, can be understood as part of the concept of generosity. I intend to edit the stories I record. I look for similarities and differences in the storytelling techniques and in conventions that people use, and make them visible through editing the material. The last part of the process includes writing scripts and staging some of the stories.

(Text: give(a)way catalogue, 2006)