What does oral history look like in practice? What goes into community-rooted storytelling projects and what are the outcomes?
Voice of Witness is hosting a series of intimate conversations with practitioners who have developed and activated dynamic oral history projects. We’ll explore the connections between storytelling and community building, liberation, ethics, civic engagement, public art, narrative change, and more. Sharing reflections and challenges, VOW staff and guest speakers will offer insights into planning, conducting, and presenting oral history projects and their potential impact.
PART 1: History, Memory, and the Environment
November 13, 2025 • 2pm PT / 5pm ET
Join us for a conversation with Lyndsie Bourgon about the overlap of social history and the natural world. Lyndsie will share insights from her work documenting traditional knowledge, folklore, and memories of land and sea, as well as conducting fieldwork in rural and remote areas.
In this conversation, we’ll explore topics including:
- Her recently published book “Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods,” about timber poachers who have felled some of the last remaining old growth for sale on the black market to be made into furniture and firewood.
- The intersections between the environment, history, culture, and identity
- Writing and interviewing tips related to exploring the nonhuman world
Lyndsie Bourgon, FRCGS, is a journalist, author, and oral historian. She is a National Geographic Explorer, and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Explorers Club. She has experience reporting and conducting fieldwork in rural areas including Haida Gwaii, the Peruvian Amazon and the California redwoods, and she writes for publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Walrus, and Canadian Geographic. Lyndsie’s book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods, was nominated for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Non-Fiction, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize at Columbia University, and a BC and Yukon Book Prize. As an oral historian, Lyndsie has conducted interviews and managed projects in the Shetland islands, Odenwald forest, and Indigenous communities in northern Alberta, British Columbia and northern Ontario.
PART 2: Films & Podcasts as Liberation
December 3, 2025 • 2pm PT / 5pm ET
Join us for a conversation with Kristal Sotomayor about the intersections of oral history, journalism, and filmmaking as acts of community and liberation. Kristal will share insights from their numerous films that touch on stories of immigration, queer identity, and community.
In this conversation, we’ll explore topics including:
- Filmmaking as an act of resistance and solidarity
- The production of “Expanding Sanctuary,” a film that amplifies the story of an immigrant mother (Linda Hernandez) who emerges as a community leader during the historic campaign to end the sharing of the Philadelphia police database with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
- Current participation in VOW’s Storyteller Initiative and Kristal’s shift to podcasting to explore the rise of water privatization in communities in Pennsylvania through firsthand oral histories.
Kristal Sotomayor is an award-winning director, producer, journalist, and curator based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Named one of “10 Latinx Filmmakers You Should Know About” by HipLatina, they are a 2023 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader Honoree and Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellow. Their short film Expanding Sanctuary won the Philadelphia Filmmaker Award at the 2024 BlackStar Film Festival and is distributed through OTV, Kanopy, and New Day Films. Their short Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens won Best LGBTQ Documentary at the 2025 Poppy Jasper International Film Festival, and their debut narrative short Las Cosas Que Brillan was produced with support from BlackStar. Kristal is developing the feature documentary Untitled PARS Project with support from Sundance and producing an audio documentary on water rights in Pennsylvania with Voice of Witness. Their work has been supported by Outfest, If/Then, Points North Institute, MDOCS, DCTV, and NeXtDoc.
PART 3: Collective Dreaming with Indigenous Communities
December 10, 2025 • 2pm PT / 5pm ET
Join us for a conversation with feini yin about using both oral history and visionary fiction to build community power. feini will share insights from their collaborations with Indigenous communities to conjure thriving futures for Wild Salmon.
In this conversation, we’ll explore topics including:
- Developing participatory interventions with and for Indigenous fishing communities
- Speculative fiction and dreaming as tools for envisioning collaborative co-existence with land, water, Salmon Peoples, and fish
- feini’s current participation in VOW’s Storyteller Initiative and creating “In Our Wildest Salmon Dreams,” a multimedia storytelling project showcasing oral histories and visionary fiction from Salmon Protectors and BIPOC activists working toward fisheries restoration and food sovereignty
feini yin is a journalist, community organizer, artist, and fishmonger working at the intersection of science, environment, food, and social justice living on Lenapehoking, so-called Philadelphia. They build power with family-scale and traditional fishing communities as an organizer with Block Corporate Salmon, the North American Marine Alliance, and Fishadelphia. They grew up in Philadelphia and New Jersey, in a Chinese immigrant household that ate fish every week, steamed whole with soy sauce and lots of aromatics.
