For 15+ years, Mandy Rose has been a champion for the individual as author/publisher. Tomorrow night, she delivers an RTS (Royal Television Society) talk called Contributors or Collaborators . This is timely as the web’s shift from publication/communication to collaboration/social interactivity lends itself to collaboration in documentary forms. Mandy commissions multi-platform productions at BBC Wales and is researching the role of the producer / curator in collaborative documentary at the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of the West of England.
I worked with Mandy when she was editor of New Media, BBC Cymru Wales, and I’ve learned such a lot by working with her. This was such an exciting time as she commissioned and co-created Capture Wales / Cipolwg ar Gymru digital storytelling, a project I lived and breathed from 2001-2007.
Before this she was co-founder of Video Nation: a project which, with hindsight, was years ahead of its time.
As she says on her blog about these and other similar projects: “What all these projects have in common is the fact that, within clearly defined parameters, the participants have been in control of how they represent themselves.” With the growth of digital publication, being able to represent ourselves, with access to the necessary tools (technical, network, capability, etc) and platforms for sharing our stories feel more and more like fundamental human rights than ever before.