“Like sands through an hourglass, these are the days of our lives.” If you’re old enough to remember the imperious voiceover that opened the long running soap opera Days of Our Lives,
you don’t have to admit it here. But you can never be too young to dodge the power of storytelling – the narratives that shape the ways in which we move through the world and our lives – and how deeply they shape our paths and perspectives.
On Monday’s Collective Conscience Salon, we were treated to our first glimpse into the vast and magical world of the global storytelling project Kcymaerxthaere, created by Eames Demetrios, Geographer at Large also known to many of us as the grandson of revered design duo Charles and Ray Eames.
Eames has been telling the stories of his renowned legacy all over the world for years, keeping its tenets alive through constant mining of the parts and pieces that constitute a movement – stories which, frankly, take a little less brain power to absorb than the wilder and woolier tales of Kcymaerxthaere.
But, as any parent will tell you, it’s as much in the listening as in the telling that a story holds its power – the actively silent, universally intimate, highly individual yet collective process of listening. Because from there we weave our own interpretations and carry those through the world around us, constantly reshaping the framework that helps us try to make sense of it all.
Now more than ever, we need stories – to navigate this arid landscape we are living, but to thread a narrative that will help us survive it.
Once upon a time is only the beginning.
Eames will be back on Collective Conscience on August 24th. Tune in to hear more about Kymaerxthaere and how he discovered it.
Shelley Tatum Kieran is Partner at MOCA+