Sara Massieu

The Emotional Architecture of Storytelling: Ownership, Emotion, and the Ethics of Narrative

Workshop

Stories shape our feelings about the world; emotions are the connective tissue between the storyteller and the audience. This workshop explores storytelling as an emotional and ethical act—particularly when working across cultures, identities, and lived experiences. What does it mean to tell your own story? What is at stake when we tell someone else’s?
The session aims to help participants understand emotional expression and its capacity to foster connection across diverse audiences through dialogue and creative exercises. The workshop will foster the development of studio culture by addressing the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000). Discussing emotions can be sensitive, as it can evoke strong feelings. Therefore, this workshop will co-create a sense of ownership and belonging, which supports a safe environment by framing emotions as relational rather than personal (Quinlan, 2016).
Participants will explore techniques for abstracting emotion, integrating multicultural perspectives, and building trust and empathy through narrative. The session emphasises the ethical responsibility of the storyteller, especially in educational settings where young filmmakers are learning to shape their voices and stories.
We will consider how emotional resonance can be cultivated. We will discuss how narratives emerge from events and feelings—grief, joy, vulnerability, and connection—and the differences between telling your own story and telling someone else’s. The session invites educators and creators to reimagine narrative-making as a process grounded in conscience and care. In doing so, it speaks to the core questions of the congress: What stories do we tell, for whom, and why?

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Sara is a Mexican multidisciplinary storyteller based in London, blending animation, photography, and graphic design to craft compelling narratives. She is encouraged by projects about social justice, climate action, Human Rights, culture, and diversity. Her film, “I Was Attacked,” is an animation documentary that portrays Gender-Based violence as an international problem. It was selected for over 20 festivals, won awards, and was shortlisted for the Student Baftas. Beyond her artistic work, Sara is also a dedicated higher education teaching art and design, helping to shape the next generation of visual storytellers.