Every year, the Europeana Initiative runs the Digital Storytelling Festival. The international event encourages cultural heritage professionals, educators, creatives, and students from Europe and beyond to boost their storytelling skills and tell stories exploring culture. We hope to inspire participants to create connections between art, culture and history and the contemporary world.

This year's Digital Storytelling Festival will take place from 13 - 14 May 2025! We can't wait to see you there and will open registration soon.

To be the first to hear when you can register for the Festival, sign up to our Events and training newsletter. 

A key part of the Digital Storytelling Festival is our Online Creative Residency, which brings students and new professionals who want to gain storytelling skills in a professional setting together with experts. Working with these experts, residency participants develop stories with cultural heritage in different digital formats.

To find out more about the Online Creative Residency, join our information session on 26 February 2025 at 3pm CET - sign up now!

What?

The third edition of the Digital Storytelling Festival Online Creative Residency is now open for applications. The residency brings students and new professionals who want to gain storytelling skills in a professional setting together with experts (mentors) in a range of formats: writing, digital animation, stop motion animation, social media, video, collage art, and 3D.

This year’s theme is food!

Our relationship with food is personal but it’s also global. It’s about home, journey, family and friendship. It’s about health and wellbeing but also indulgence and celebration. It’s about our planet - seasonality and sustainability but also deforestation and destruction. It’s about feast but also famine. Food is depicted in art and literature throughout the ages, it pervades our languages, and special meals mark out the calendar in all our cultures. There’s plenty of food for thought in this theme - we look forward to seeing how this year’s residency participants interpret it!

When?

The residency will run from mid-May to mid-July. You’ll need to be able to join in all of the online sessions in order to be part of this group. And you’ll need to be able to find time to work on your personal contribution in between sessions.

• Welcome and brainstorm for all participants and all mentors - Wed 21st May 11:00-13:00 CEST

• Format-specific sessions, each run by the relevant mentor and attended by the participants following that strand.

  • Social media - Carola Carlino - Mon 26 May, 13:00-14:30 CET

  • 3D storytelling - Matevž Straus - Tue 27 May, 15:00-17:00 CET

  • Stop motion animation - Maike Dulk - Tuesday May 27, 14:00 - 16:00 CET

  • Video challenge - Marianna Marcucci: Wed 28 May, 15:00-17:00 CET

  • Digital animation - Nick Cave: Thur 29 May, 12:00-13:00 CET

  • Writing - Beth Daley - Fri 4 June, 14:00-16:00 CET

  • Collage art - Cosmina Berta - Wed 6 June, 15:00-17:00 CET

• One-to-one session for each participant with their mentor - late May to early June.

• Review and celebration session for all participants and all mentors - Weds 16 July 11:00-13:00 CEST

How will it run?

First, we’ll host a two-hour brainstorming session for all participants and mentors together. We’ll look at what content we can use, what stories we’d like to tell, and the formats available to us.

Next, each mentor will lead a two-hour session relating to their own area - writing, digital animation, stop motion animation, socail media, video, collage art, and 3D - with the participants who are interested in that area. There will also be a chance for each participant to have a one-to-one short session with the mentor for their chosen format. Throughout the residency, the mentors and the Digital Storytelling Festival team will be on hand to support participants.

At the end of the residency, we’ll all get together again to review our work and to celebrate our achievements before publishing the work the group has produced as part of Pride month.

Who should apply?

People who:

• Want to gain creative skills

• Want to apply storytelling skills to their professional or academic activity

• Are interested in cultural heritage

• Can commit to attending the sessions and doing the work

• Want to work in a collaborative way with others

We are particularly interested in hearing from people in the early stages of a career in digital heritage, or those studying related subjects.

Why should you apply?

• You’ll support the visibility of and access to cultural heritage and its contribution to history and society

• You’ll share your own knowledge and learn more about culture and community

• You’ll work with professionals

• You’ll meet peers

• We’ll publish your work

• You’ll share your own skills and learn new ones

• We’ll provide you with a certificate of completion, and you’ll also receive a gift card as a token of our thanks for your hard work

How to apply?

If you’d like one of the places on our Online Creative Residency, simply fill in the brief application form by 23:59 Monday 31 March 2025 (please note that the form will be posted here after the information session on 26 February).

The Digital Storytelling Festival Residency team will assess applications looking for a balance of disciplines and experiences and get back to you by the end of Friday 2 May 2025.

Writing - Beth Daley

Beth is a cultural and creative writer and the Europeana Foundation's Editorial Adviser. She works on helping engage a broad range of audiences in Europeana’s work and content. She has a PhD in Creative Writing, runs writing workshops and has published a novel called ‘Blood and Water'. Beth led the Europeana Network Association’s Task Force on ‘Europeana as a powerful platform for storytelling’, which led to the development of our ‘7 digital storytelling tips for the cultural heritage sector’.

On the residency: ‘It is always a pleasure to mentor participants on the writing strand of the residency. This year our theme is food, and as that is my next greatest love after writing, I can’t wait to see what comes out, whether it's poetry, prose, non-fiction, essay, or something else.’

Video challenge - Marianna Marcucci 

Marianna co-founded ‘Invasioni Digitali’ (Digital Invasions), a bottom-up initiative created in Italy in 2013. Invasioni Digitali aims to promote the value of and engagement with local cultural heritage. She says, ‘I’m in Audience engagement and Development. I design, implement and promote digital communication strategies for cultural organisations and travel businesses. I support organisations in creating and managing relationships with online and offline communities and target audiences, developing digital-enabled tools to communicate in creative ways. I deal with exploring different ways of communicating cultural content with the use of new media to reach ever more and more involved audiences, combining the use of social media and storytelling.’

On the residency: ‘An avid listener, I believe that change can only come from exchanging ideas and opinions, always striving to find unexplored connections between people to create new communities. I love exploring different ways of communicating cultural content with the use of new media to reach ever more and more involved audiences, combining the use of social media and storytelling. Ethical communication is my soft obsession, I’m very critical about anything-washing.’

Social media - Carola Carlino

Carola has an MA in Modern Philology and PhD in Digital Humanities. Her research focused on the processes of transforming cultural heritage data into usable content accessible by different types of users and online communities, through the use of digital storytelling. Carols is Project Manager of cultural heritage enhancement and digitization projects, at Dot Beyond, an Italian leading digital transformation company. She is a member of Europeana Network Association, Europeana Members Council, and Europeana Communicators Community Steering Group.

On the residency: I firmly believe that storytelling is the way through which we give life and voice to objects by showing ourselves to others. I look forward to meeting the participants and creating emotional and significant stories with them.

Digital animation - Nick Cave

Nick loves experimenting with animation techniques and has worked with a number of cultural clients on animating a selection of their images, music, or illustrations to celebrate an anniversary, promote a service, explain and simplify a strategy, or even bring a Bhangra song alive! He particularly enjoys the challenge of reworking archive images into a short animated story and loves getting involved in the annual Europeana GIFITUP competition, one he won a prize for previously in the industrial heritage animated gif category. Nick also teaches animation apps on the online Skillshare learning platform.

On the residency: ‘I love how you can bring ideas alive and tell short stories using a mix of simple animation techniques, colour and engaging content. I’m looking forward to working with the students to impart some of the knowledge I’ve learnt when experimenting with a range of animation techniques. Modern mobile animation apps are so powerful and affordable now, that they’ve made it a lot easier for artists and hobbyists alike to get into animation. So, for example, using one, or more of them you can take a still life image of a fruit bowl and bring alive the bananas, apples, or oranges in it, turning them into little characters along the way. I think this year’s residency theme of Food paves the way for some very interesting, animated ideas and content, ones which I can’t wait to help students bring to fruition.’

Stop motion animation - Maike Dulk

Maike studied physics and visual arts, and has worked as a programmer in diverse jobs in the Netherlands and Canada. When not working on Europeana's software, she is either making music, doing 3D animations in Blender, drawing something or writing Sindarin poetry. Maike is joining us in 2025 as our first mentor in stop-motion animation!

On the residency: 'It intrigues me that in this time of photorealistic real-time 3D motion graphics I’m still struck by what animation artists have accomplished using basic techniques like drawing or painting directly on 35mm film stock or stop-motion animating paper cut-outs, especially when combined with sound. Do you dare to become fascinated?'

Collage art - Cosmina Berta

Cosmina Berta is a collage artist inspired by the connections between history, culture, and storytelling. Her work focuses on giving new life to historical visuals, drawing from the rich resources of museums, libraries, and archives, including Europeana, to create pieces that bridge the past and present. Through blending vintage imagery with modern compositions, she explores themes such as journeys, identity, fashion, and the art of cuisine, encouraging viewers to uncover hidden stories and perspectives. Her artistic process combines intuition with careful consideration, using elements of deconstruction and reconstruction to create meaningful works. Cosmina values the opportunity to share her approach with others, fostering creativity and encouraging exploration through collage.

On the residency: 'I am delighted to once again have the opportunity to mentor a group in a collage art class during the upcoming residency. Building on the experience and insights gained from last year, I look forward to sharing my passion for collage art, exploring hidden treasures from Europeana, and helping participants infuse fresh energy into their artistic journeys. It’s inspiring to guide aspiring artists as they grow and develop their unique perspectives, and I am excited to foster an environment of creative exploration and self-expression throughout this residency.'

3D storytelling - Matevž Straus

Matevz Straus is a Heritage+ Lead at a High Performance Computing company Arctur (www.arctur.si) from Slovenia and holds a M.Sc. degree from Urban Studies (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Université libre de Bruxelles, University of Copenhagen, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid), M.A. degree from Market Communication (University of Ljubljana) and a B.A. degree from Analytical Sociology (University of Ljubljana). Matevž has been working at the crossroad of heritage and innovation for the past 5 years, has led several award-winning projects on innovating heritage. Matevž is also a co-founder of ID20 Institute for heritage innovation and leads Idrija 2020 Association (www.id20.si ).

On the residency: 'I enjoy discovering the stories of hidden gems, unknown facts and secrets of cultural heritage – especially when they involve good food and drinks. Beside my work with 3D and XR technologies, my free time is dedicated to organising an annual gastronomic festival and gastronomic-theatre experiences. I am looking forward to exploring how an enthusiastic group of storytellers can bridge food and 3D in a relatively short time.'