Enchanted Environments as an identity rhizome; Story-making and its relation the the creators’ self

This paper re-appropriates the Deleuze and Guattari concept of the rhizome to reframe what the enchanted environments tell us about their creators’ identities and lives. The paper draws from several case-studies and research projects I have ran during the years, to review how the creation of enchanted environments (both story and design) results in non-linear often non-conscious reverberations of the author’s lives.

The paper will include a book, the ‘backstage’ (2007), that was part of a wider research project exploring the connection between fairy-tale ‘fictions’ and ‘factual’ stories. The paper will analyse how the Backstage book traces my own personal experiences in graphic and journal form, providing a conscious reflection on how these had influenced my research choices.

Amongst others, the case studies will include a project with Professor Jack Zipes titled Fw: One More Image - One More Line (2018-2019). This was about co-writing a story by just continuing each other’s story-lines and images. I would like to present the book, the paintings and objects that resulted from it and reflect on how the process of communicating and co-creating this enchanted environment was as a meaningful social function that allowed me to constantly reflect and reframe my everyday life.

I will also signpost a few other story and performance based projects that I had ran in museums and schools the last 10 years and were about the retelling and remaking of stories as a way to ‘re-play’ one’s identity. The paper will reflect how by creating enchanted environments has transformed everyday spaces into enchanted spaces of telling the self.