Fables for Imagining
Gillian Russell, Craig Badke, Frédérik Lesage, Lauren Thu. Illustrations by Doan Truong
(An Instagram Story)
“Follow me. Do you want to see another cute kitten video?” Said Rabbit while jumping enthusiastically from hole to hole.
Life for Rabbit was jolly and merry. He loved to discover new and exciting burrows to jump through. But with every new discovery, Rabbit’s warren got bigger and deeper.
“Up! Kardashian hole!”
“Left, Trump Hole!”
“Down, Rihanna pregnancy hole”
“Right, antivaxers hole!”
Soon Rabbit became tired, wondering “why there were so many holes?”
While known by all his friends as both curious and friendly, Rabbit grew to become bitter and angry. It was just too much. So Rabbit decided to take a break and stop jumping.
One day Earthworm popped his head into Rabbit’s burrow where Rabbit was sitting patiently. “Rabbit why don’t you jump anymore?” asked Earthworm.
“I’ve been digging deeper and deeper for you, but you are not following.”
“Oh!” Said Rabbit. “I'm exhausted!”
“I had no idea!” said Worm.
Rabbit and Worm decided to make a pact: from now on, there will be only two holes. And since then, Rabbit jumps from Kim Kardashian to kitten videos for all of eternity.
A storymaking tool and workshop series that explore how to foster digital fluencies through the art of fable writing.
Fables are one of humanity’s oldest forms of storytelling; sharing tales of moral inquiry and caution, told through archetypal characters, to build shared wisdom, interrogate power, and navigate societal roles and responsibilities. Fables for Imagining is a storymaking tool and workshop designed to adapt these aspects of fables to build digital fluencies that extend beyond everyday understandings of how digital technologies work to develop a deeper appreciation of their existing value systems, the contexts of their use, and the consequences of their creation.
The workshop employs fabulation as a meaning-making activity that uses the familiar tropes of storytelling through fables to create unfamiliar stories and to build a critical awareness of the world. We guide participants to develop their own techno-social fables to draw out how digital technologies shape our world, while building a collective imagination for our future selves and society. Drawing on the work of Daniela Rosner, Saidiya Hartman, and Donna Haraway the project employs fabulation as a research tactic that brings together ‘wild facts’ with taken-for-granted realities to negotiate the hidden narratives in the world.
By bringing the social and political content and context of technological subjects to the fore, Fables for Imagining enables participants to develop digital fluencies to re-figure and question their existing situations while making connections between their everyday experiences and a broader social or civic imagination.