the WE project
Shifting the narrative
one story at a time
(Photographed and produced by Valérie Berta.)
The WE project works to shift the narratives around marginalized communities through visual representation and storytelling, and to foster intersectional dialogue*. The WE project is on Osage, Omaha, Kaw, Missouria, Otoe and Ioway lands. Stories and visual representation are the building blocks of narratives, and narratives shape the policies that rule our lives. Shifting narratives and representation is an essential piece of our progress towards a future of inclusive justice. Black and brown, indigenous, immigrants, refugees, L.G.B.T. Q+, disabled, unhoused, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and many others at the intersection of these and other identities, share a history of systemic and sometimes violent marginalization and erasure in the United States of America. The WE project works to highlight and celebrate the tapestry of this, our wildly diverse humanity, and to open safe, inclusive and collaborative spaces for people to tell their stories.
Finally the WE project seeks to help bridge the gaps between these diverse communities through intersectional dialogue and to engage the community at large in conversations about radical equity, inclusion and healing. *Liberating Stories, a monthly panel in partnership with The Bridge at the University of Missouri, brings together WE project participants around storytelling as healing process and intersectional tool of liberation. The panels are hybrid, at The Bridge and on zoom: https://bit.ly/WE-project-liberating-stories