Pinchbeck, M., 2025.

Audiovisual Storytelling and Collective Memory of Chinese Immigrants: Case studies of Our Stories and Talking Trees / ??/?? in the UK

Audiovisual digital storytelling is a powerful tool for the creative self-expression of marginalized communities (Alexandra, 2008), shaping collective memories and transnational identities (Darvin and Norton, 2014). Moreover, participatory storytelling fosters agency, belonging, and cultural continuity, promoting social inclusion and advancing democratic participation (Couldry, 2009). However, insufficient attention is given to how digitally enabled participatory storytelling reshapes audiovisual practices in the context of citizenship-building and reconnection to nature and place.
This paper examines how new collaborative arrangements in participatory storytelling expand the boundaries of audiovisual production, dissemination, and engagement via two case studies. Through ethnographic research and co-created storytelling projects, we explore how migrants articulate experiences of displacement, cultural adaptation, and belonging.
Our Stories is a participatory storytelling project (2011- 2024) that captures and shares the lived experiences of Chinese immigrants in Wales, highlighting their contributions to the region's evolving industrial and cultural landscape. Initially launched as part of the Hafod Morfa Copperworks Redevelopment Project, the project sought to document and interpret migration histories within the region's post-industrial transformation. Talking Trees/??/?? (2021) is a digital storytelling project that offers 'percipients' (Myers 2011) the opportunity to take a virtual journey to China on an audio walk between trees of Chinese origin. The project embeds authentic cultural materials into an interactive framework and enhances linguistic competence and cultural literacy through engagement with digital storytelling and the natural landscape.
Both multidisciplinary projects feature collaboration between academic researchers, creative practitioners and ethnic minority communities in redefining audiovisual storytelling by foregrounding co-production and participatory methodologies. They further reimagine audiovisual circulation by integrating site-specific performance and exhibition and immersive experiences into storytelling practices. Our findings add to discussions on collaborative production, multimodal engagement, and transnational circulation in reshaping how migration narratives are created, shared, and experienced in a mediatized global mobility era.