May's Quest theme is...
👁🗨 Quest Digest #22 + we're hosting live events in New York + London!
THE QUEST DIGEST by Creative Quests is a treasure chest of ideas, stories & opportunities exploring what it means to live an illuminating, creative life. Delivered when inspiration strikes.
Hello friends!
Sam here. What a wild couple of weeks it has been. After our biggest Creative Quests sign up ever (104 people from 20 countries 🤯) this week we kicked off our brand new theme for May… STORYTELLING.
Storytelling is elemental in all our lives. From the front page to the big screen to the micro exchanges between us - stories are how we make sense of the world around us. Some filled with love and nostalgia, some with ghosts and horror.
“We think we tell stories, but stories often tell us, tell us to love or hate, to see or be seen. Often, too often, stories saddle us, ride us, whip us onward, tell us what to do, and we do it without questioning. The task of learning to be free requires learning to hear them, to question them, to pause and hear silence, to name them, and then become a story-teller.”
- Rebecca Solnit
Over the course of May we will be story-listeners, story-tellers but most of all story-explorers. What myths, legends and anecdotes we uncover will be different for each of us.
As with every Quest, we can only really know what the beginning part looks like... the middle and the ending are yet to be written! We’ll share our learnings along the way.
👁🗨 ✨
Follow our journey this month on Instagram…
🗯 We want to know what YOU know about Storytelling.
Share your Storytelling knowledge with us in the comments.
Ideas / people / organisations / communities / histories / facts / content / anything!
📍 We are bringing Creative Quest live events to New York and London this May!
After 2 years of running our experiences online and for global groups… we are SO EXCITED to get in person and local📍
We’ve developed a new event called Excursions which packs all the Quest magic and creativity into 3 hours. We’ll be exploring Storytelling at these events, in conjunction with May’s Creative Quest.
For these upcoming events you can expect a walk around Alphabet City (in NYC) and Peckham (in London), great conversations + storytelling themed games and experiments. A perfect place to meet fellow curious humans and explore collective creativity in a playful and thought-provoking way.
📍🇺🇸
Sunday 21st May
Hi-Note, 188 Avenue B, NY 10009
3-6pm
🎟 Free entry (via ticket booking)
📍🇬🇧
Saturday 27th May
Peckham Levels, 95A Rye Lane, London, SE15
2.30-5.30pm
🎟 £15 (via ticket booking)
We’ll be hanging out for drinks and chats after both events. Whether you have done a Quest before or not - we would love to see you there.
A round up of illuminating discoveries from the world of Storytelling…
🦄 Myth podcast brings you folklore that has shaped our world, including popular stories you think you know, but with surprising origins.
🗣 Society for Storytelling: supports & promotes storytelling in the UK.
🌚 Nightmind is a platform for online storytelling and unfiction (a genre of storytelling that presents itself as happening within our current reality, but is actually fictional).
📖 Read Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) - the classic book discussing the structure of the mythological hero's journey.
🧠 How Stories Shape Our Minds (2019) - a BBC ideas doc on the power of stories to reduce prejudice and help persuade.
** These links were curated by our brand new Archivist contributor, Melanie Knight. Thanks Melanie!
… and beyond.
👀 This is how a 3 year old sees the city
📸 Famous photos + the cameras they were shot on
🌎 Planet Justice: a 3 day arts & culture festival in New York City which offers and antidote to the doom and gloom of the climate crisis. (Sam will be in attendance 👋)
😁 A crucial trait for happiness: Enthusiasm. (No wonder the Quest life feels so damn good!)
🦜 Watch this Inca whistle jar imitate animal sounds
Finally…
This week I moved out of London to Margate, an arty seaside town on the UK’s south-east coast. As a true city boy it feels completely surreal and amazing. It’s a big move.
It feels very fitting that we start a Storytelling themed Quest as I begin a new chapter of my life. One thing I am really curious about is how my Questing practice changes in reflection of my new surroundings.
Alongside the curiosity, I have a lot of anxieties about what the ripple effect of moving out of London could be. But as years of Quests and micro-adventures has taught me… Curiosity trumps fear every time. Stay tuned!
We hope your week is full of love stories.
Sam + CQ HQ
x
🥾 Quest Guide / Founder
📲 @saaamfurness
THE QUEST DIGEST by Creative Quests is a treasure chest of ideas & stories exploring what it means to live an illuminating, creative life. Delivered when inspiration and creativity strike. Subscribe to receive each issue!
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