Still Standing: A Live Storytelling Event

The Public Engagement program at Maine College of Art, in partnership with The Abyssinian Meeting House, held STILL STANDING, a live storytelling event, at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA. The event was a culmination of the project and community partnership with The Abyssinian Meeting House, faculty member and local storyteller (creator of the HEAR TELL series) Elise Pepple, and her students in the Public Engagement course Storytelling 101.

This past fall, MECA’s Storytelling 101 class collaborated with The Abyssinian Meeting House to celebrate its story. For this project, students interviewed African American elders in Maine, to create an archive of stories to be housed at The Abyssinian Meeting House. By documenting these stories, the partnership aimed to celebrate the contribution and experience of African American elders by creating an archive of stories for future generations. Still Standing is the culminating event to celebrate the importance of African American experiences in Portland and communicate the significance of this history in the state of Maine.