Project Description
The South African BaNtwane culture has a rich beadwork tradition. However, the oral stories and with that the knowledge about the beadwork are disappearing in a rapid pace. I collorated with the BaNtwane tribe and designed StoryBeads. StoryBeads is a recording device on which tangible beads can be placed. The beads operate the recording device: placing a new bead on the device starts the recording of a new story. Placing an already recorded bead on the device enables the playback of the story. The bead can be connected to the traditional beadwork. This way, the traditional beadwork caries the story and knowledge for future generations.
Collaboration
Andrew Smith from the Meraka Institute at the CSIR, Ismael Makitla from the BaNtwane community, the BaNtwane community and Elise van den Hoven as supervisor from the University of Technology, Eindhoven.
Outcome
Reitsma, L. (2015). Enabling Design to Disappear: The Design Process of StoryBeads. In NJ Bidwell and H. Winschiers-Theophilus, eds. At the Intersections of Traditional and Indigenous Knowledges and Technology Design.
Reitsma, L., Smith, A. and Hoven, E. van den (2013). StoryBeads: Preserving Indigenous Knowledge through Tangible Interaction Design. In Proc. of International Conference on Culture & Computing 2013, pp. 79 – 85.
Smith, A., Reitsma, L., Hoven, E. van den, Kotz., P. and Coetzee, L. (2011). Towards Preserving indigenous Oral Stories Using Tangible Objects. In Proceedings of International Conference on Culture & Computing 2011, pp. 86-91.
