What[areyour]3Words?

What[areyour]3Words was a community project that took the concept of What3Words as a unique location device and transformed it into a method of story generation and collection.

Through monthly writing prompts, special one-off workshops, community programmes and drop-ins, we invited participants to think about the unique three words for any theme – place, family, yourself, future, community, fun – and develop these into stories and art. This took many forms, including postcards, pictures, keyrings, poems and maps.

Over the year, we created a hidden treasure trail of stories, where anyone could discover geo-caches of poetry, writing and art. Many participants’ stories became part of the trail.

The original idea and creative concept was developed by associate writer Tori Cannell and combined with the story trail element created by our Director, Helen. By bringing these elements together, the project extended into the landscape and invited stories to be discovered as well as shared.

Here’s a little snapshot of some of the groups we have worked with and what we explored during our sessions…

COCBEAN: Working with a women’s group, we read poetry about what it means to speak many languages, we explored cento poetry and created our own poem, and we also considered what three words of advice we would pass on to our future selves.

FALMOUTH ART GALLERY: During a drop-in session, we used pictures and paintings to inspire stories using three words as a prompt to help start our writing. Participants had the choice of writing a story or a haiku or simply share a meaning memory or moment.

THE BUTTERMARKET: During a drop-in session at the Buttermarket, we invited people to share their three words that described Cornwall and gave them an opportunity to also create a bookmark or keyring.

REDRUTH LIBRARY: We ran two sessions for the Redruth Writers’ Group and explored place, setting and spaces that hold meaningful memories. We wrote poems, flash fiction and responded to postcards and paintings using the images as prompts. We also explored the What3Words for Redruth Library and the Writers’ Block and used the words to inspire a short piece of fiction.

REDRUTH SCHOOL: Over the course of seven sessions, we explored many forms of creative writing, including words we wish to pass on to others, poetry, stories about our favourite characters, flash fiction and much more. Each participant produced a notebook filled with stories, sketches and we also created a series of badges. The work produced was then hidden in one of our Geocaches.

WE ARE REDRUTH: We worked with the local community across two sessions to explore the hidden treasures on our doorstep, we wrote postcards to the astronauts in space, and we explored the words that we associate with our name through poetry and collage.