Environmental storytelling is a concept drawn from video game design that refers to methods of delivering narrative purely through space or setting rather than dialogue or narration. This technique might allow a player, for instance, to learn a protagonist's main attributes by examining the contents of their bedroom, or to understand the key political and ecological circumstances of a sci-fi dystopia through its bus stop advertisements. Yet while environmental storytelling has become a central technique of modern video game narrative, versions of the practice can also be found in film, television, graphic novels, experimental poetry, and virtual reality. Moreover, the core question that this practice explores—how can a space tell a story?—is of urgent relevance to many other disciplines both within and beyond the Humanities, including Theater and Performance Studies, Architecture and Design, Literature, Film Studies, Dance, Art History, Archaeology, and Environmental Studies.

The Tanner Lab in Environmental Storytelling will create a movable physical space for developing, prototyping, and experimenting with environmental storytelling scenarios and methods. This space will be furnished with temporary walls, furniture, props, light and sound equipment, screens, writing instruments, and other materials that will allow students and faculty in diverse fields to test different ways of generating narrative through environment—or alternately, of exploring one's environment through narrative—flexibly and seamlessly. The Lab will hold a series of workshops introducing the pop-up space throughout the academic year 2025-26, and its directors plan to make a demo version of the space temporarily available for free use in the spring. We will also host a symposium in March, with an invited keynote, that explores different connections between and configurations of narrative and the environment.