Museum of Stories: Bury Park

What is it?

Museum of Stories: Bury Park is an experimental community audio drama project for Revoluton Arts. The 2022 pilot involved setting up a phone line which anyone could call and leave any story, about anything, in any language.

What was the result?

Contributors formed a steering group to use the material submitted to co-create one new 15-minute drama, Seeing Clearly, inspired by a real memory which was embellished and adapted by the project's co-producer Shemiza Rashid.

How was the drama made?

The script for Seeing Clearly was co-written by Fin Kennedy and community contributor Lee Bowman, and all the parts in the play performed by other contributors.

What was the pilot testing out?

The results test out the idea of publicly sourcing stories and memories of a specific area, as a pool of material for a new place-based audio gallery, with numerous audio dramas designed to be listened to in situ, at locations up and down Dunstable Road. 

What will the full project look like?

Museum of Stories will eventually be up to 10 short audio dramas uploaded to a geolocative app, showing which locations the stories should be experienced in, with all stories sourced by another open call and co-created with further community participants. Fundraising for this fuller version is ongoing.

How can I get involved?

If you're from Luton and like the sound of this project, sending us an enthusiastic message would really help with our fundraising!

To be the first to hear about future iterations and ways to submit, please join the Applied Stories mailing list.

If you're from elsewhere and would like to discuss bringing Museum of Stories to your area, please get in touch. 

Press coverage

Read some of the press interest generated by our 2022 pilot...

Museum of Stories in Bedfordshire Live

Museum of Stories in Luton Today

Museum of Stories on the Farzana Chaudry show on BBC 3 Counties Radio (listen from 1 hour 47mins)

Museum of Stories on Imrana Mahmood's Book Club show on Inspire FM (14 Dec episode)