Georgiana Keable, founder of Opsal Farm, has been a pioneer for the storytelling renaissance in England and Norway.
Young people from Norway, Europe and the world live on the farm today, most of them for approx. one month. Most of the activities that take place are quite concrete – to support the forces of nature.
But stories also play a big role. By telling about, or as one of the other species, we can approach a respect and sometimes more understanding for our surroundings. We spend time observing, not just mapping, but also encountering nature with all our senses open. Then we use imagination to imagine how it might feel to be a tree, a fly or a swallow.
Georgiana was one of the first to start working full-time as a professional narrator in London alongside legends Ben Haggarty, Pomme Clayton, Hugh Lupton, Jan Blake and TUUP.
After she moved to Norway in 1997, she founded: Fortellerhuset, Fortellerfestivalen and the podcast FortellerRadio.
She loves environmental stories – myths, botany, fairy tales or historical dramas. With Per Jostein Aarsand, she has performed stories on the Pilgrimsleden in Oslo for 10 years with, among other things, Oslo DKS.
For 10 years, Georgiana has told about 1,000 children at Oseberghaugen every year, a story about life and death, wealth and the joy of walking barefoot (DKS)
For 13 years, she has worked with Klimafortelling for 8th grade, and played Thor Heyerdahl’s mother in his childhood home in Larvik (DKS).
In addition, she has promoted bilingual storytelling since 2006.
She has written the books “The Natural Storyteller” and “Fairytales Families and Forests”, both published by Hawthorn Press, and contributed material to many other books.
She has spoken at festivals internationally in many countries, traveling overland as much as possible. In 2015, Georgiana received Oslo City’s Artist Award for outstanding efforts within Oslo’s art life. More about storytelling can be found at www.georgiana.net and www.fortellerhuset.
