Shape stories that move

Storytelling sits at the heart of everything we do. We shape work around the people, ideas, evidence, emotions, and experience that give it meaning, using play and uncertainty as part of the discovery process. We create stories that reveal what matters, why it matters, and who has a role in shaping what happens next.

We help researchers, creative teams, and organisations shape stories that enable knowledge to travel between disciplines, institutions, communities, sectors, and public spaces, while holding complexity and moving insight towards action.

How we do it  

Start with the story. Then connect that to people, ideas, evidence, and experiences in ways that translate your work’s meaning, navigate tensions, and move insight towards action.

Hold complexity. We preserve nuance while shaping complex knowledge into stories people can encounter, understand, and use.

Create immersive experiences. We render stories as spaces people can move through, question, and shape.

Across analogue and digital. Each story requires the right mix of narrative frameworks, desk research, objects, spaces, live encounters, immersive experiences, and new technologies. We use data, sensors, and interactive environments only where they strengthen the story,  without becoming the focus.

Build meaning, connection, and agency. Create frameworks where people can locate themselves within complex work, make meaning with others, and carry the story forward through their own choices, roles, and actions.

actions.

Research context 

Born in Bradford is a world-leading research programme that tracks the lives of over 60,000 Bradfordians to understand what keeps families healthy and happy. Its research infrastructure brings together cohort studies and connected health, social care, education, and environmental data to support better population health across Bradford and beyond.

For the VR project, researchers and community partners needed a way to make this vast evidence base accessible, meaningful, and useful in a wide range of settings, while preserving the complexity and nuance of the data.

Research impact

The Born in Bradford VR experience opened new pathways for public engagement with health research and bridged the gap between big data and personal meaning for diverse audiences.

The VR experience functions as both a research tool and an impact device, creating a shared space where researchers, parents, participants, policymakers, and practitioners can explore patterns, ask questions, and take part in making sense of the data.

The immersive format was selected for the SXSW2020 programme, shared as case studies through the Audience of the Future Creative Industries Clusters Programme and XR Stories, featured at the BEYOND Conference and other international festivals.

The project is informing future immersive platforms that seek to democratise access to large datasets across research, policy, and community contexts.