The Digital Storytelling Project was developed by the VCA’s CCD Program with assistance from the State Government’s Community Support Fund (Department of Victorian Communities).

The six films created as part of the project illustrate and explore how CCD processes provide ways for communities to celebrate their culture through community based arts projects. The six films and statements by the workshop participants can be found below (Windows Media Files).

N.B. The films below require Windows Media Player. If you do not have this currently installed, please follow the links below to download and install this program:

Windows Media Player for PC

Windows Media Player for Mac

This webfilm presents artist Lamine Sonko's creative approach to working with primary school children and he introduces the value of culture within traditional drumming and dance from his country Senegal.

Watch Lamine Sonko's Artist's Statement
Watch Culture is our Future by Lamine Sonko

Bubble was inspired by the poem I do, you do from the play Bursting the Bubble, devised by young parents attending Corio Bay Senior College in collaboration with professional artists. Bubble was directed by creative producer Lynden Costin who is currently the General Manager of the Courthouse Youth Arts Centre (Geelong, Victoria).

Watch Lynden Costin's Artist's Statement
Watch Bubbles by Lynden Costin

Storycatching is an animated shadow tale of a girls' journey of discovery.  This is a story told via cut-out paper characters using an overhead projector.  The webfilm illustrates how shared stories in our lives help us to become part of the community.

Multi-media maker Tara Prowse values the use of both digital and analogue when working with community to tell stories, spin tales and explore possibilities. Co-creator Chook Star is an illustrator and visual artist with a background in community youth development & advocacy, graphic design, public art and social change.

Watch Tara Prowse and Chook Star's Artists' Statement
Watch Storycatching by Tara Prowse & H-L Plaizier (Chook Star)

Need for Speed is a film directed by Sue Hartigan and Efterpi Soropos and traces the journey of a young man who performs with Geelong’s Theatre of Speed, a theatre company of young people considered to have an intellectual disability.

Watch Sue Hartigan & Efterpi Soropos' Artist's Statement
Watch The Need for Speed  by Sue Hartigan & Efterpi Soropos

Our Tenderness is a webfilm created with South Sudanese young women from the refugee community settling in the City of Greater Dandenong.  The film communicates the issues of survival and encourages us to move beyond making judgments based on what the eye can see because it is an imperfect tool. A small candlelight helps to show us the way!

Watch Shahin Shafaee's Artist's Statement
Watch Our Tenderness & Statement by Shahin Shafaee

Journey was inspired by the possum skin cloak-making project for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony 2006. The film presents a discussion with Indigenous artist, Vicki Couzens and non-Indigenous artist, Robyn Thompson in regard to the value of place and identity within the Indigenous cultural traditions of Victoria.

Watch Artist's Statement by Robyn Thompson
Watch Journey by Robyn Thompson

The aims of the CCD Digital Storytelling Workshop were to:

• produce a series of visual products that would highlight the value of CCD partnerships within the diverse range of current public policy areas, and
• motivate interest and stimulate awareness in CCD practice with an emphasis on the role of artists working collaboratively with diverse communities.

In addition it was the intention of the workshops to highlight the ways that communities have:

• enhanced their creative skill capacity;
• gained voice through the telling of their stories;
• claimed their cultural identity, and
• created artistic expressions to address and highlight their concerns & aspirations.

The web-films were designed to illustrate how CCD projects can align to the key objectives of public policy. They focus on policy themes including inter-faith challenges, refugee settlement, indigenous reconciliation, social justice, health and wellbeing, and creative capacity building.

Postgraduate Diploma Students:
Lynden Costin 
H-L Plaizier (Chook Star)
Lamine Sonko
Tara Prowse

Masters Students:
Sue Hartigan 
Efterpi Soropos
Shahin Shafaee

VCA Digital Storytelling Project Staff
Richard Jones (Teacher & Workshop design)
Cameron Duff (Production Manager)
Brie Trenerry (Technical Support)
Sue Clark (Project Manager/ Head of CCD Program)