New paradigms in interpretation: How stories can change the world in a changing world (GAHI Series presented by AHI)

Stories have a transformative power to captivate, convince and embolden. As interpreters we have a responsibility to harness this power by creating experiences that foster empathy and inspire action. This talk explores how stories can change people, places and even the planet, now and for the future. Through iconic global case studies drawing on personal and professional experience, it will highlight the power of interpretation to better understand our world, to explore and imagine potential new worlds and to provide audiences with opportunities to act on what they discover.

The talk will also look at the interpreter’s role in capturing people’s attention and imagination in an increasingly ‘loud’ world. As media outputs, from gaming to television, becomes increasingly interactive and immersive, interpreters must create experiences that cannot be found elsewhere. Experiences that evoke moments of awe, that address complex and contested narratives, that tell the untold and that take audiences on epic narrative journeys.

All this demands new ways of thinking about interpretation – a paradigm shift in how we interpret. The talk concludes with a manifesto advocating new models of practice, recognising the increasingly promiscuous discipline that is interpretation.