The Circus Stories Map will use an interactive open-source participatory mapping platform called uMap, and will be populated with three types of stories: contemporary circus stories, historical stories about particular circus sites, and COVID-19 related stories.
A series of hackathons will be used to collect data, allowing the mapping team to create time-based events and encourage the community to submit as many of their stories about significant circus sites and experiences as possible.
The official launch of the map will take place during Montréal Complètement Cirque’s virtual international marketplace industry event (MICC) on July 8.
Concordia’s 4TH Space will host a webinar on July 9 at 3:30 p.m., 24 hours into the first hackathon. It will bring together moderators from Canada, the USA, France, England, Mexico, Brazil and other countries to discuss emerging storytelling trends and notable absences.
“Once the stories are submitted, they are checked by a native speaker to make sure the content is relevant for the project, and if so, it will appear on the map right away,” Caquard explains. “This structure has been designed to be as simple as possible for the storyteller with a minimum of human intervention in the back end.”
“That said, automatizing the process required quite a bit of computing work that was done by two PhD students: Alison Bowie (Humanities) and José Alavez (Geography, Planning and Environment).”
“What is really exciting about this project,” says Caquard, “is that it could offer access to circus stories from all over the world through one specific entry point: the map. In a domain such as the circus, in which people and companies are often in movement between places, what is left of these moments is memories, rather than buildings or monuments, and mapping these memories can help to make them more tangible, more visible, more accessible.”
Anna Vigeland, a research assistant who’s pursuing an interdisciplinary MA with the Individualized (INDI) program, is most excited about the participatory and multilingual platform, which opens with English, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese. At a later date, it will also include simplified Russian.
“Even the historical stories will carry the voice of the contributors,” says Vigeland. “It should really make for a fluid, growing, and multi-voiced platform.”
Leroux’s team also looks forward to exploring the possibility of holding more thematic hackathons, allowing the various circus groups to fill the map along their specialized fields, such as festivals, schools and social circus movements, among others.
Join the “Deepening your Circus Knowledge” panel discussion with Louis Patrick Leroux on July 8 at 2 p.m. The discussion launches The World Circus and Stories Mapping Project as part of International Market of Contemporary Circus. Register for free.
On July 9 at 3:30 p.m., 4TH SPACE will host a webinar The World Circus and Stories Mapping Project Conversation with international guest-moderators. Register for free.
Find out more about the Circus Stories Mapping Project, and submit your story.