Blog | Contemporary Narratives Lab

Collaboration Case Study: You Must Take Part In Revolution

Robin Kwong · February 6, 2025

You Must Take Part in Revolution is a graphic novel by Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan and international activist artist Badiucao. It is a story about technology, authoritarian government, and the lengths that one will go to in the fight for freedom.

Collaboration Case Study: Black Box

Robin Kwong · December 21, 2023

Black Box, or ‘Musta Laatikko’ in Finnish, is the live journalism production of Helsingin Sanomat, the largest daily newspaper in Finland.

Collaboration Case Study: Philly Story Fest

Robin Kwong · November 23, 2023

Back Pocket Media premiered Philly Story Fest in the Bok auditorium in Philadellphia to a sold-out crowd on October 5th, 2023. The theme for the inaugural Story Fest was “A Love Letter to Philly.” The stories were windows that allowed attendees to catch a glimpse of the city in all its complexity - through art, performance, journalism and music.

Collaboration Case Study: Everybody is Gone

Robin Kwong · November 19, 2023

Everybody is Gone is an immersive art performance and research project co-created by Uyghur artist Mukaddas Mijit, U.S. journalist Jessica Batke, and The New Wild, a multidisciplinary art lab.

HOME/CARE Report

Robin Kwong · November 14, 2023

At the end of the project, which was funded by a research grant from City, University of London, Dr Glenda Cooper wrote a full report detailing the issues the project sought to address, the events and activities that took place, and our learnings from it.

It's Criminal—at The Tron

Robin Kwong · September 20, 2023

As words normally associated with crime reporting flashed up on screen, eight performers strode onto the stage at the Tron theatre in Glasgow to kick off It's Criminal, a live journalism project exploring the impact traditional crime reporting is having on Govanhill, a Glaswegian neighbourhood whose citizens are often scapegoated or blamed for crime.

New Project: It's Criminal

Rachel Hamada · February 13, 2023

How does the way the media reports on crime affect communities? That’s what It’s Criminal, a new storytelling project taking place in Glasgow this year, aims to find out.

Collaboration Case Study: Bitcoin Mining: Watt is Money?

Robin Kwong · December 21, 2022

The Financial Times and Nikkei commissioned Rhizomatiks, a Tokyo based arts collective, to create a new 6 minute video that explored the real life environmental cost of bitcoin mining.

Collaboration Case Study: 20Twenties: Eve of Destruction

Robin Kwong · December 7, 2022

20Twenties: Eve of Destruction is a climate anthem released in October 2022. It is created by Daily Maverick, one of the largest independent news media in South Africa, and sung by Anneli Kamfer.

Collaboration Case Study: Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting

Robin Kwong · November 18, 2022

The Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting connects artists with major news publications that are seeking to create new contexts for investigative work. CAIR works with editors, newsrooms and educational institutions to develop projects and courses. It was recently founded by Marisa Katz and Jake Charles Rees.

Collaboration Case Study: Toronto Rewind

Robin Kwong · October 20, 2022

Toronto Rewind is an interactive online festival that took place in November and December 2021. Using the Gather app, it brought participants into the heart of six unique stories that offer new perspectives on people, places and events from Toronto’s past, told by local journalists and storytellers.

Interactivity is not (the) objective

Robin Kwong · June 27, 2022

I gave this talk at the ECREA Journalism conference in Utrecht on June 17. It was part of a panel on Designing for deeper audience engagement that brought together researchers and journalism practitioners to discuss questions concerning the design for deeper audience engagement. The panel covered topics such as metrics, interactive formats, and finding a balance between audience-journalist participation.

Collaboration not instrumentalisation

Robin Kwong · May 8, 2022

The Perugia International Journalism Festival resumed this April, after a two-year break. I was fortunate enough to participate in a panel on artist-journalist collaborations with Alison Killing, Surya Mattu and Ivan Sigal, moderated by Marisa Katz. We had all worked with publications to make art, write stories, and to provide artists with a space to voice their distinctive viewpoints on world events and urgent issues.

Avoiding the pitfalls of partnership

Glenda Cooper · February 22, 2022

It was an exciting proposal bringing together artists, journalists, researchers and the public. But I quickly realised that there were huge lessons to be learned about common (mis)understandings, milestones and principles, as well as who was paying for what and when.

When Journalism Meets Theatre

Glenda Cooper · April 29, 2021

So what's the point of putting journalists together with a theatre company, when one seems to deal in fact and the other in fiction?

News on stage: journalism as performance in the online space

Glenda Cooper · April 19, 2021

This post was originally published in the Creative Academic Magazine. Republished with permission.

Journalism that tells emotional truths

Robin Kwong · October 29, 2019

I gave the following keynote on stage in Bucharest, Romania, on October 18 at the Power of Storytelling, an (un)conference built on the idea that well-crafted stories connect people, heal wounds, inspire, lead, and create change.

Why emotional storytelling is the future of journalism

Robin Kwong · June 6, 2019

I gave the following keynote on the media stage at the Fifteen Seconds Festival, an interdisciplinary festival for business, innovation, and creativity, in Graz, Austria on June 6, 2019.

What art and drama can do for journalism

Robin Kwong · April 20, 2019

This is an expanded version of the talk I gave at a panel called “Goodbye News, Hello Drama: visual forms and post-news journalism” at the 2019 Perugia International Journalism Festival. I am indebted to many for the ideas here, but especially to my fellow panelists Hossein Derakshan, Shazna Nessa and Lucy Rohr for the conversation.