Open Fenland landscape beneath a broad sky

Fenland · Nov 2026 to May 2027

COMMON
GROUND

A Digital Storytelling Lab for Fenland.

16 people. 16 stories. One evolving digital portrait of a place.

Sixteen Fenland residents will turn memory, place and everyday life into original digital stories.

Explore Common Ground Take part

ReadinessFunding approved

Programme: Nov 2026 to May 2027
Places: 16, free
Who: Fenland adults, 18+
Workshops: Four, plus 1:1 support
Outcome: Exhibition + showcase

16people

4workshops

16stories

1digital exhibition

1public showcase

Freeto take part

The principle

Human story first.
Technology serves the storyteller.

Every place has stories. Not every story gets heard.
Why Common Ground exists

Participants keep authorship of their own work. The digital side of Common Ground exists to carry a story further, not to smooth it into something generic.

Your voiceYour story stays yours.

Your formWrite it. Record it. Photograph it. Film it.

Your choiceMaking something does not mean publishing it.

Four workshops

Discover, create, build, publish.

Four principal workshops across Fenland, with individual creative support in between. Everyone works at their own pace, in the medium that suits their story.

Nov 2026 to May 2027 · Free places

Notebook, pen and written notes during a storytelling session — Writing and shaping material

Audio recording equipment set up for spoken storytelling — Recording spoken stories

Discover

Find something worth noticing.

Create

Turn it into material.

Build

Shape how it is experienced.

Publish

Choose what becomes public.

See the programme →

Fenland

The place is part of the material.

Wisbech, March, Whittlesey, Chatteris and the villages between them. Flat horizons, working waterways, market-town streets and a long memory that is mostly held in people rather than archives.

Six starting questions

Georgian buildings along North Brink beside the River Nene in Wisbech — North Brink, Wisbech, beside the River Nene

Public library building in March, Cambridgeshire — March, a possible local delivery setting

01Wisbech

What does arrival mean here?

02March

What changed around you?

03Whittlesey

What survives because somebody keeps doing it?

04Chatteris

What ordinary life deserves remembering?

05Villages

Who remembers what was never written down?

06Landscape

What does this place sound like?

Illustrated Fenland reeds against a low horizon

The sixteen

16 spaces. Not 16 invented people.

They stay empty until real participants decide what becomes public. Nothing here is a placeholder for work we have already made.

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Digital exhibition

Not 16 identical stories.

Audio, photography, writing, film, narrated pictures and interviews each need their own presentation. The exhibition is built around the work, not around one template.

Built and maintained by Mukoko Studio

AudioPhotoWritingFilmInterviewMixed media

The archive stays empty until genuine participant work is made and approved for sharing.

Enter the exhibition

Choose a door

Start where you are.

Whether you want a place, a look at how the work is made, or a conversation about delivering it locally, there is a route in.

Four ways in

01Take part 02Make a story 03Explore the project 04Work with us

Start small

Start with one thing you keep noticing.

Try the Story Lab Take part

COMMONGROUND

Human story first.Technology serves the storyteller.