Ekenäs StoryWalk

Ekenäs StoryWalk is a Leader-funded place-making project which aims to deepen local engagement, place identity and co-governing and at the same time develop a cross- disciplinary method toolbox. Our methods include artistic and social science research, geodesign, visual and audio storytelling.

We want to encourage engagement with and analysis of our community as the place we call home and encourage an on-going dialogue about pasts and futures. At the same time we hope to inspire a critical debate about city development, culture, commercialisation, diversity, democracy, migration, transparency and accessibility.

We are motivated by what we see happening in our home town Ekenäs after an administrative fusion with the neighbour towns Karis and Pojo and can sense an urgent need for a conversation about values and visions for the future. At the same time we see a need for more democratic, accessible and transparent planning processes in general - a need we can sense in other parts of Europe as well. 

The project was initiated by Ylva Rancken-Lutz and Åsa Lönnqvist and the project idea sprung out of  Ylva's participation in the European Cultural Foundation's Idea Camp 2015 in Sweden. The earlier project  - StoryCaravan - got ECF's R&D scholarship 2015. 

Ekenäs StoryWalk preparatory project is financed for 6 months and we are working on an application for a 2-3 year project. We also have some funding from Svenska kulturfonden in Finland.