Idle Talk

A SHARED ARCHIVE OF EVERYDAY STORIES

01 — DECEMBER 2024

Idle Talk

/ a grassroots paper that surfaces everyday folks’ everyday stories and anecdotes through a direct phone line. Call 07724.628.709 and tell your story after the tone / Send your longer stories directly to our email address below / Building a creative archive as a site of memory and encounter. Meeting in the Everyday / Participatory archive / Nostalgic appeal of the telephone / Histories / We’re listening / Our first issue will rummage through ‘Everyday Objects’. Dial in.

Embracing a new concept of the participatory archive, Idle Talk aims to involve people, and especially those who have been neglected or overlooked in mainstream narratives, in the storytelling process and allow them to contribute to how their histories are preserved and represented.

Drawing on the nostalgic appeal of the telephone, Idle Talk aims to stimulate social exchange and invite people to connect over their experiences in the everyday. Idle Talk is particularly interested in illustrating how personal stories shape, reflect and interact with art and culture – highlighting both their individual and collective significance, one page at a time.

More information on how to contribute here.

We’re building a community, meeting people and collecting stories. We can’t wait to share our first issue with you.

To make this possible, we’re raising funds to pay our contributors fairly and print the first issue, which we plan to distribute for free to as many readers and everyday strollers as possible.

Our Kickstarter campaign is live, and we’re grateful for any support as we aim to meet our funding goal by November 30. Every bit helps us bring these stories to life – thank you for being part of it!

Donate here.