Curious Caravan
The Curious Caravan is now having her own adventure and continues to collect and share incredible stories, bringing together and delighting communities along the way. Check out her instagram for more details here
Curious Monkey’s Curious Caravan is a portable space for stories to be shared. Our team of story collectors visit communities to tell stories that they’ve heard and gather new stories from the people they meet. The story collectors want to fill the caravan full to the brim with tales of everything from the everyday to the extraordinary.
Since her first outing to Byker during lockdown in 2021, the Curious Caravan has visited communities at the Comfry Project in Gateshead, Newcastle City Library, Love is the Map Festival at the Cumberland Arms, Byker Best Summer Ever, Tom Collins House - Byker, Newcastle Quayside with NE1, the Word in South Shields, the Paines Plough Roundabout in Harbottle Park, and outside Northern Stage. We’ve shared and collected stories with over 500 people in local communities so far.
The story collectors have recently been joined by illustrators Jonluke McKie and Lizzie Lovejoy who bring people’s stories to life there and then, and AV artist Simon Cole who lights up the caravan with the images and sounds from the stories that are shared.
Where it all began…
In April 2021, we ran a pilot in Byker, Newastle upon Tyne, to test out how we would run the Curious Caravan and how people would interact with it and with us. We had three main aims:
To connect with people after lockdown
To tell positive stories of refugees and asylum seekers
To engage with new people
We set out two tables with chairs so families and small groups of friends could come and chat to us. We served teas, coffees, cold drinks and cakes to people as they arrived. Our story collectors explained that we were there to collect stories from local people about their lives and experiences and whatever they wanted to share with us! Some of the stories we would tell to other people if they were happy for them to be shared, or they would be stored away in the secret box to be kept between us. The story collectors would share stories from people who came before, from people they know, and stories from their own lives.
It was an informal space to come and experience being outdoors and talking to people after so long of not being able to do so. One woman who came to talk to us at the pilot session hadn’t been outside for a whole year due to the pandemic, the Curious Caravan was her first outside connection. The session gave us the opportunity to meet lots of people and begin establishing relationships in the community.
We attracted a lot more children to the caravan than we were expecting. The experience was designed for adults and also families, but because of the location coupled with it being during half term holidays, the Curious Caravan gained a lot of interest from children who in turn, persuaded older family members to bring them along.
As a Theatre Company of Sanctuary, we aim to tell positive stories of people seeking sanctuary. Some of the stories we told during the pilot session came from our play HERE, which was created with input from members of the Arriving group and has characters who are sanctuary seekers. Stories were told from The Book of Here which was written by the Arriving group, which involved the participants sharing some of their own stories. Everyone who came to the Curious Caravan was given The Book of Here to take away with them.
“I always like to do everything I can for those I love. It is also great for my English.”
— Arash, Volunteer
“I like help people and it is a wellbeing therapy for me.”
— Belmira, Volunteer
