© Murtaz Bolkvadze
For the Micro Project “Old Tales” a group of young people from Armenia and Georgia created a digital interactive book, based on old Armenian and Georgian fairy tales.
Murtaz and Salome went digging through the archives of the national libraries in Georgia together, searching for untold stories for children. "Some of the stories are well-known to our parents, but the Generation Z people might not yet have heard of them. My younger family members really struggled to imagine the characters of the stories I read to them", explained the 25-year-old Murtaz from Georgia. Bringing the written tales into an interactive format allows children today to interact with animated characters and move the story along. So, this is going to be more like a game.
"The most difficult part of the work is creating the visual design. This being a folk tale, it is hard to put a written story into the digital format. It is written without any graphics and making sketches and drawings is fairly difficult, but we have a talented graphic designer", says Murtaz with a smile on his face.
The "Old Tales" creators point out that digital storytelling helps teachers and parents adopt innovative and improved teaching methods and introduce children to modern technologies through educational fairy tales. Moreover, these fairy tales can help children learn more about fundamental human concepts and emotions, such as friendship and bravery.
"Our primary objective is to bridge the gap between Georgia and Armenia and promote mutual understanding and knowledge of each other's cultures. We hope to share the project results in Armenian and Georgian schools," he adds.
We don't want to spoil it for you, so check out yourself:
