Wish You Were Here is an online oral history documentary project created by Grace Sweeney and Laura O’Connor.
The project is part of the Future Screens NI and Northern Ireland Screen initiative ‘Rewriting the Narrative’. The initiative sponsored a number of projects responding to the impact of Covid-19 on the creative industries in the following areas: community, creativity, environment, work/life balance & education.
Wish You Were Here was created as a way for older members of the community who were shielding or isolating to engage in storytelling, where their stories could be shared with strangers without them having to leave the house.
The theme that ties the stories together is ‘first time abroad’. Considering the current situation where travel is limited we wanted to transport viewers into the world of the contributors journey. The eight video interviews use personal archive, open source footage and archive provided by Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive to take you on the journey.
Each video is displayed alongside personal archive images. These images have been used to create unique postcards. The postcards have links and QR Codes that you scan with the camera on your phone and you will immediately land on the video webpage. At the bottom of the page is a comment box. If you leave a comment for the contributor it will be published in a photo book at the end of the project.