Tell Your Story: North Star Story Map Preview
By Ann Mayhew | April 6, 2023
SPOTLIGHT
From favorite streets and corner stores to places of beauty and inspiration, everyone has a story to tell about a special place.
That’s the premise of the North Star Story Map, a new storytelling site focused on Minnesota’s built environment from AIA Minnesota, Mill City Museum, and the Minnesota Historical Society. ENTER readers are invited to explore the website and contribute their own stories in advance of the soft launch, ahead of a public launch in May.
North Star Story Map is designed to prompt visitors to the site to reflect on the built spaces that hold meaning for them, and to make it easy for people to share their story with others, adding photos, videos, or audio recordings as they’d like, to fill out a collective map.
Storytellers have already shared their memories of visiting Leng’s Fountain in Grand Marais as a child, experiencing the inspirational beauty of St. Catherine University’s Our Lady of Victory Chapel in St. Paul, and residing in an historic Pipestone inn while building a new home for their family.
Unsure where to start in sharing your own story? These questions can help jumpstart your brainstorming:
What place has shaped your life?
What place do you miss?
Where do you feel free to be yourself?
What place gives you a feeling of belonging?
What built space makes you feel alive?
What building inspires you?
With funding from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, this project seeks to honor Minnesota’s heritage by building a people’s history of the built environment. Later this summer—after the effort launches publicly in conjunction with Doors Open Minneapolis on May 13 and 14—AIA Minnesota and the Minnesota Historical Society will be seeking partnerships with local organizations and groups to gather and share stories from a variety of Minnesotans, from high school students to seniors across the state. If you are connected to an organization that might be interesting in joining this effort, you are encouraged to reach out to the North Star Story Map team at nssm@aia-mn.org.
Share your stories. Read the stories already posted. Be part of this effort to grow the connection between Minnesotans and their built environment.
North Star Story Map is a collaboration between the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Minnesota, Mill City Museum, and the Minnesota Historical Society. This collaboration is made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008; the fund is administered by the Minnesota Historical Society.
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