Welcome to the Story Garden

By David Rose



A place to germinate, nurture, grow & share our stories.

=The Story Garden= The Story Garden is an online space at MOMA where stories are formed and shared. They can be in text form, and/or audio-visual multimedia.

=The Garden has no Walls= The story of a Museum is a not just a story about a building and the artworks it contains, it is also a story about the artists and curators, a story about the people who thought of it in the first place, a story about the people who built it, but most importantly it is a story about the people who love to visit it.

The story of a Museum is also a story about stories, for at a Museum, stories are also made. We say "the Story Garden has no walls", because it is difficult to say where the Garden starts and where it finishes.



The story of the Museum of Moving Art (MOMA) is a story of stories - stories shared by you and stories about people like you. The term "Story Garden" is a beautiful metaphor, for it resonates with the idea of Paradise (not in the cultural appropriative sense of Pan Am travel posters but something more metaphysical, more mythological). Just as plants drop leaves and even die only to fertilize other plants, so the story plants in the garden can nurture and give rise to each other. We want to create an opportunity for non-linear stories: so that they can expand and go in different directions and various depths according to the curiosity and interest of the story's observer (recipient). Really, we do actively participate in the stories told to us, for we bring our own energy and experience to them as they come to life in our perceptive imaginations. We want stories to grow!

=The Story Tree= At the centre of The Garden Story stands a huge Story Tree with deep far-reaching roots into the past and expansive branches growing outwards and upwards into future heavens. Indeed, the Story Tree could be characterized as the evolving Myth at the heart of the MOMA world. It is the myth that is discovered by seekers playing the MOMA game(s), it is the myth that shapes the gameplay in the role-playing experience, but it is also a myth that players can shape as they share their stories in the Story Garden.

=The Trunks of the Trees= While the tree with its roots and branches represents non-linear story telling, the trunk of the tree represents an opportunity to create a linear story within the context of the non-linear story matrix. Indeed it is a wonderful model for the creation of linear stories such as feature films, theatrical plays and novels - in these stories there is a definitive start, middle and end - they go in one direction like the straight trunk of a tall tree.

=Today's Feature Story= If you would like your story featured here, click this link to message David Rose

=Tended Garden Beds: Other Stories= These are the stories currently being nurtured in the Story Garden:

Frost on the Swag

=Everyone's got a story= But, not everyone feels comfortable going public with theirs, some want to. Even objects have stories, or at least evoke them - how often have you picked something up and wondered who else has held it, or who made it and why? Stories may be anonymous or proudly named. This part of wikimoma.art is about nurturing crafted stories in their many forms, be they documentary or fantastic in nature. They may be shared in any digital medium utilizing text, spoken word, moving images, or series of stills (or indeed any combination of these approaches).

We encourage you to have a go at contributing a story. Please feel free to reach out on Discord or contact David Rose if you need any help or guidance.