The problems and possibilities of using digital storytelling in public history projects

Abstract

Kelvin Grove is a small inner-city working-class suburb, which has always been a gathering point for various people. While never densely populated, the 16-hectares of land that is now the heart of the Kelvin Grove Urban Village (KGUV) – a Department of Housing redevelopment -- has been a meeting place for indigenous clans, and military and educational institutions that have shaped Brisbane and Queensland. Each of these groups has its own history, but collectively their stories offered an opportunity to compose a public history project about Kelvin Grove as a place with an evolving and complex identity.

A multi-art form public history project has offered a range of possibilities for the telling of this history, while also increasing a sense of community, and for allowing individuals, through the use of oral history and digital storytelling (DST) in particular, to construct a personal sense of place, identity and history.