Share YOUR story. Shape OUR city.
Story Cart is a mobile story collection program that travels to community spaces and engages Milwaukeeans in conversations about their lived experiences.
Our Story Fellows craft questions related to the current C21 research theme, record participant responses to those questions, and add them to our Story Cart digital archive (forthcoming).
The stories form the basis of our exhibitions, are referenced in our publications, and occasionally spawn spinoff events and related programming.
Story Cart: Attention
Our contemporary lives are increasingly dominated by digitized platforms that pressure each of us to look for a second and then quickly move on. Too many people rush to judgment, shout past each other and lose sight of what they still have in common. Can we unlearn the habits of fast-paced timing, rapid rewards, and scattered attention that damage our capacities for critical thinking and deep engagement with civil and social life?
Story Cart’s current run introduces Milwaukeeans to practices of radical attention. From September 2025 through May 2026, our community Story Fellows will lead attention workshop pop-ups throughout the city, and will record discussions with participants about the experience of paying attention.
Story Cart: Attention was inspired by the Strother School of Radical Attention, is supported by the Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue, and is part of C21’s SLOW: The Pace of Being Human programming series.
Meet Our Community Story Fellows:
Adam Carr is an independent writer, artist, journalist, community historian and organizer based in Milwaukee. Carr was director of strategic partnerships at Milwaukee Park Foundation from 2022-2025 and producer at 88Nine RadioMilwaukee from 2008-2011. Working in communities throughout Milwaukee, his work ranges from journalism to public art, film/photography to coalition building, dialogue facilitation to community history, writing to in-depth tours.
Madeleine Doelker Berlin (LPC-IT) is an Associate Licensed Professional Counselor, Social Scientist, and a few other things—like an immigrant, a parent, and someone who’s lived through big transitions. Born, raised, and partially professionally trained in Germany, she has a background in social inequality research and a professional path that weaves through mental health, public service, and community advocacy. In both her life and work, Madeleine brings an intersectional, systems-aware lens to understanding how people move through the world. Her current work draws on liberation psychology, existentialist psychology, and feminist psychology to explore how personal healing is connected to social context, meaning-making, and resistance. She’s especially interested in the stories we carry, the cultures that shape us, and the quiet, radical act of paying attention. Madeleine holds graduate degrees in Social Sciences and Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Her approach is grounded, curious, and deeply human.
Symphony Swan Zawadi is an artist, cultural strategist, and founder of THE CR8TV HOUSE, an arts and community institution reimagining space, storytelling, support and memory keeping for Black and Brown creatives. With over a decade of experience spanning arts education, nonprofit leadership, and philanthropy, Symphony brings a deep commitment to equity, imagination, and community care.
She began her career as a K–8 art teacher before serving as a school administrator, where she focused on culturally responsive leadership, community building and student-centered learning. Symphony holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and completed her graduate degree in educational leadership, equipping her to lead in both classroom and organizational settings with clarity, empathy, and vision.
Today, Symphony channels her interdisciplinary expertise into building creative ecosystems that honor legacy, foster healing, and invest in future generations. Her work has earned her recognition as the 2023 Milwaukeean of the Year by Shepherd Express, 2024 Gener8tor Art Fellowship Recipient and most recently the 2025 City of Milwaukee Friends of the Arts. She also serves as a trustee for the Milwaukee Art Museum. She continues to advocate for artist-led systems change that reflect the communities they serve.
I’m Ladasia Bryant—a recent graduate from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, specializing in Communication Design (Class of 2023). I have recently transitioned into working as an upper elementry art teacher at Milwaukee Academy of Science, as well as owning my own company, Braided Magazine. My creative journey converges graphic design, fine art, and education, focusing on community and meaningful change through the arts. I combine all of these media because I believe all five senses will further our understanding of each other and the stories that need to be told.
Upcoming Events:
Frequently Asked Questions
C21’s mobile Story Cart is designed as a site for exchange, collaboration, and learning through story. Each year the Story Cart will focus on a theme that is part of C21’s extensive programming (podcasts, roundtable discussions, online resources). The C21 team designs a line of inquiry that invites stories in response to that theme. C21 hires and trains students to accompany the Story Cart to a range of locations across Milwaukee. Stories might be shared through drawings, video, or audio recordings.
For Story Cart’s 2025-2026 run, Story Cart: Attention, C21 has invited three Story Fellows from the greater Milwaukee community to create a series of attention exercises. Our community Story Fellows will lead attention workshop pop-ups and record discussions with participants about the experience of paying attention.
In 2022, C21 hosted a series of retreats that incorporated faculty, student, and community stakeholders in a conversation about the pressing issues of the time. The retreats focused on the place of the university in Milwaukee, the restructuring of the traditional academic conference, and the inclusion of multiple expert voices into conversations about topics both studied and lived. Mobility – honoring experience and expertise outside the space of the lecture hall or Zoom room, and meeting people where they are – anchored much of the discussion.
The leadership team at C21 decided to build a Story Cart to meet Milwaukeeans where they live their stories. We engaged Glenn Williams (UWM Art & Design) to design and fabricate a mobile work of art with craftmanship that would convey the value and care with which we would approach people’s stories. With a small, internal UWM grant, the Story Cart was born.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, C21 hosted the Nourishing Trust symposia which focused on the relationship between trust and food. Inspired by Martice Scales’ comment “The problem is that people in Milwaukee have no idea what it is like to have to walk a mile with two 10-pound bags of groceries,” we decided to use the Story Cart to invite stories of the journeys people take to secure food. The Story Cart and the Story Cart team visited grocery stores, farmers markets, block parties, and food centers across Milwaukee County and encouraged people to share their stories. That summer, the Story Cart team visited more than 25 locations and collected over 175 interviews.
The mobility of the Story Cart allowed the team to quickly set up a small recording studio where people could learn about our mission and share their food journeys. The incredible craftsmanship of the cart and the expert facilitation of our Story Fellows created a trusted, mobile, third space for gathering and sharing stories.
The stories gathered by the Story Cart have been included in several exhibitions including one created by C21 which is featured on both our Thinking C21 website and in our gallery space in Curtin Hall. We have worked with community partners such as LUNA ( Latinas Unidas en las Artes) and TRUE Skool to create artwork based on the collected interviews. This work has been highlighted in numerous news articles such as this one by WUWM’s Lake Effect.
People who share their stories can choose to use their names or not. With their permission, their stories/responses will be archived and made available for public education and use through the Story Cart digital archive (forthcoming).
C21 focuses on “story and sensory” surveys that invite participants to reflect on the feelings, sounds, smells, and colors evoked with a given topic. The answers to these questions are often hard-to-reach data, and they are meant to inspire creative solutions in the face of difficult topics.
Past topics include food access and trust and the voting process.