Between Stories: The Agency of Story and Living Ways

• Main Author: Clark Espinal, Panya
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Turtle Island; Iceland
• Online Access: http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2522/; http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2522/1/Clark_Espinal_Panya_2019_MFA_CCP_thesis.pdf

This thesis is an exploration of the agency of stories, focusing on the question of living story. It employs Walter Benjamin’s 1936 essay, The Storyteller, as a primary lens of European origin, also looking at the role of story in Turtle Island Indigenous and Icelandic scholarship. The main outcome was a collaborative artist’s bookwork titled On Whaleroads and Boatmaking, which collects and curates stories by Elín Agla and myself; the project consisted of several additional components, including trips to Iceland, hosting people in my home in Toronto and an invitational feast. A reflection on contemporary societal conditions, Between Stories: The Agency of Story and Living Ways as a thesis provides a framework for considering paradigm shifts that affect the perception and relation to Story and stories.