Would you like to share a piece of your story with the broader Champaign-Urbana community? Voices: Memory as Connection will weave together true stories from people’s lives. By sharing these stories, Voices aims to create a meeting place where we can see each other and hear how our stories intersect and interact. The final tapestry of voices will be performed for our community in March 2022. Everyone who feels connected in some way to Champaign-Urbana is welcome to participate in sharing stories, watching the performance, or both.

To participate, you’re invited to answer the questions below, and then write about an important moment in your life that relates, loosely or directly, to our theme of “Memory as Connection.” All submissions are considered and included anonymously, as the goal is to create a tapestry of many different views. During the weaving process, submissions may be excerpted and edited for anonymity. Your writing can be submitted through this Google form.

Please feel free to invite people in your communities to share their own writing and/or to attend the performance at the HGMS Graduate Student Conference on Friday, March 25, 2022. The performance will also be recorded for participants who would like to see it from home. This project is facilitated by Brett Kaplan, Director of UIUC’s Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies, and Azlan Smith, Public Humanities Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute. Please send any questions to Azlan Smith. Read more