StoryHelix – a community storytelling project

StoryHelix invites you to share your stories in a recorded or written format.

This is not a contest! This is a collection of stories about our community that we create together. All community members are encouraged to participate by calling the hotline or scheduling an interview. The stories will be published and shared, here on the StoryHelix website, and on our podcast, which is distributed on most places where you can find podcasts. You will retain all rights to your story! (Learn more about your rights and the requirements!)

This project is grounded in the ideal of making our area a braver, safer, more beautiful, and more equitable place to live. If we are to move into a better imagined future, a reckoning with our past and current stories is needed. The StoryHelix project invites us to examine what stories we have inherited, and what stories we will pass down.

Here is the current theme:

Rekindling: Directions to participants: Pick any one of these categories and interview yourself or a friend! You can stick to just answering these questions, or use them as a starting point to spark further conversation. Lighting a Candle Who or What are you grieving right now? Describe this person, place, thing, idea, job, or relationship, and what they / it meant to you. Is there anything you wish you could have said or done differently? What shape does your grief take? How have you been filling the void this loss left behind? Stoking the Ashes In what way do you celebrate what or who you have lost? Do you feel connected to your ancestral cultures? If so: What does that connection look like, feel like, sound like, smell like, taste like? If not: What connections have you lost to your cultures of origin? Evoke the image of an ancestor. What emotions come up for you when you think about that person, or your ancestral history? How do you process these emotions? What kind of an ancestor do you hope to be? Has your sense of community changed since 2020? If so, what is different now and why? Gathering Kindling: What have you lost, what have you gained? Do you have a new definition of normal in regards to socializing? When you think about the future of community relationships, is there hope? Is there despair? What do you crave in social connections? Describe your ideal community or social experience.

We’re working with some awesome local community organizations to gather and share out your stories. Strides for Social Justice and the Whiteaker Community Arts Team help to collect stories; Lane Arts Council collaborated with us in 2021 and 2022 to put artistic representations of 5 spotlight stories on the Downtown Eugene Public Library; and Minority Voices Theatre will be partnering with us this year to create staged performances. Stay tuned!

Thank you for sharing yours.

Thank you so much for an incredible celebration of the first year of StoryHelix!

For a synopsis and pictures from our first year celebration at the Oregon Wine Lab, Click Here!

About Our Project Name: A double helix is the structure of a DNA molecule: what makes a living being who or what it is. Our DNA is shaped by our ancestors’ experiences and environments. If just one of the letters (A, T, G, C) is removed, ignored, or changed, the entire being is altered — even becoming an entirely different creature. Communities are like this as well. Eugene and Springfield, and the surrounding areas have an uncomfortable history and present surrounding erasure, inclusion, and exclusion. For too long, many in our community have not been heard. StoryHelix hopes to honor our community’s letters, and their juxtapositions, and to weave a new narrative together. Tracing our EUGeneology. Intertwining stories past, present, and not yet imagined.