Stories from the neighbourhoods. An inspirational search.

This story and inspiration booklet is one of the many results of the European project Collections of Ghent. You can read how we set to work in various Ghent neighbourhoods to discover stories of Ghentians who crossed our path.

We would like to take you on the adventure that this project was for us. A beautiful but bumpy journey, started in challenging times. With a covid pandemic, an energy crisis, a crisis in Ukraine, and a disaster in Turkey.

First of all, you will learn more about this participatory project in which heritage, community work, and technology reinforce each other. Then we will take you through our working method in the neighbourhoods where we were active. The many encounters, activities and neighbourhood explorations produced many stories. Some of these stories were used as interactive stories and narratives in the CoGhent Box, with the pictures themselves being available online as well. Many other fascinating and striking testimonials, anecdotes, and reactions also surfaced. A selection of these stories can also be found in this booklet .

Our goal? To inspire you with the many stories and the methods we used to uncover them. No ready-made recipes, but tools to uncover hidden stories yourself. Tools to connect and create shared meaning.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to all Ghent residents, big and small, young and old, who have been in Ghent for many years or who have recently arrived in Ghent, for sharing this experimental experience with us and generously sharing their stories.

A heartfelt thank you!