An Editorial Sewing Circle – Collaborative Storytelling beyond Established Journalistic Platforms: Paper presented at the Media- and Culture Studies Group at the NordMedia11 conference, Akureyri, Iceland, August 11th-13th 2011

This paper starts off with an editorial sewing circle and a patchwork seminar where participants were invited to contribute to an SMS-embroidery-feuillton by embroidering one of their own text-messages. Whereas research on participatory journalism has been based on established journalistic platforms (Karlsson 2010), this paper tries to understand the gathering, processing and publishing of information that takes place outside established journalistic platforms, but within known situations of everyday storytelling. In aligning us with others who use metaphors from textile handicraft in relation to knowledge construction, writing techniques and other forms for disseminating knowledge (eg. Haraway, 1988; Bränström-Öhman, Livholts, 2007; Sundén, 2008) we explore what happens in the seams between two particular platforms of storytelling: the editorial board and the sewing circle placed in an art gallery. Thus, by using something known and placing it in a different context, in a different space, we challenge the very practice of the editorial board, of journalism. This method of ours, is that of a feminist intervention into established rooms, concepts and practices. The paper consists of two parts: a written document and Texting Textiles, a collaborative patchwork-quilt based on the patchwork seminar hosted at Galleri Krets, in Malmö, August 2009.