Window Seat Media

Support Window Seat's mission to spark conversation, connection, and social change through community-based oral history and storytelling in the South Sound and beyond.

Who We Are

2023-24 Community Roots cohort proofread exhibit panels before printing. 

Window Seat is a community oral history organization that has been gathering people together to document and share stories since 2016. We are committed to growing a living archive of memories and experience that reflect, honor, and celebrate the many histories that make us who we are, here, in the South Puget Sound region. We believe our future is shaped by the stories we tell, so we work with our community to weave valuable community learning of the past into the fabric of public life today.

What We Do

Stories of Food, Food as Story exhibit at the Lacey Museum and Cultural Center opening soon! 

Community archives impact what and how we remember. Our local archives currently lack many stories of youth, elders, LGBTQ+ folks, BIPOC, immigrants, disabled people, low income people, and others who have made significant contributions to our region. Inaccurate or incomplete narratives reinforce biases, deepen inequality, and create cultural divides that leave people isolated. By contrast, when communities develop the skills and have access to the tools to document and amplify our own stories, we grow in our power to connect across differences, strengthen bonds, and imagine new possibilities for a future we build together.

To address these challenges, Window Seat aims to:

• Build community capacity to share and document our own stories by training community members in oral history methods and best practices and multimedia storytelling tools;
• Add underrepresented oral histories to local archives and libraries; and
• Amplify local histories through diverse and engaging public programming, such as artist talks, exhibits, workshops, performances, podcasts, communal listening sessions, and other activities that center the needs and strengths of the South Sound;

Our activities aim to strengthen community resilience and build collective agency across generations and cultures.

Our History

Community members engage with an audio exhibit at the Capitol Theater as part of the InhaleExhale event, Feb 2020.

Since our founding in 2016, Window Seat has facilitated many community oral history projects, workshops, and gatherings, including: Preserving Working Farms (a series of videos that document and educate about local efforts to preserve working lands), Third Thirty (a community-based oral history project that honors and amplifies the voices of South Sound elders), InhaleExhale (a multimedia, multidisciplinary series about death and dying), and Stories of Food, Food as Story (a project-based series using oral history to explore histories and cultural heritage through food traditions and local foodways), Olympia Music History Project (now it's own nonprofit!), and Interfaith Works Our Roots Run Deep (a series that documents foundational moments of the org).

In 2023, we launched Community Roots—an ongoing oral history initiative that seeks to document local community arts and organizing efforts. The project explores how visionaries and change-makers come together to create new possibilities for themselves and their neighbors. Our first Community Roots Project, Third Spaces (2023-2024), explored the stories of three space of activism and community care: Camp Quixote, Driftwood Daycare, and the Liberation Cafe. 

What We're Up To Now

2024-25 Pride Storytelling Project cohort members.

Community Roots continues to be our primary focus through the Pride Storytelling Project (2024-2026)—a collaborative project with Capital City Pride that explores the stories at the heart of Queer spaces and organizing in Thurston County. This project is addressing the lack of LGBTQ+ primary source materials in the local library and archives. It aims to bring our community together to engage with true local histories at a time when broader national narratives around LGBTQ+ people are politicized to misrepresent and exclude groups from our national story. Over the past year, our cohort of 6 queer storytellers has been learning the ethics and practice of oral history documentation, visited archives, and interviewed and transcribed 20 interviews with community narrators. Now in its second year (July 2025-2026), the cohort will be producing creative projects and public programming to engage the community in themes from the interviews they conducted. You can read more about their projects in our website!

Support Community Care and Connection With a Gift Today!

Storytelling is a vital part of human life. There are many ways that community storytelling can nourish, heal, and strengthen our communities. We rely on your community support to continue our work of creativity and social change. 

All gifts—large and small—are needed and deeply appreciated.

Pride Storytelling Project share out at the Olympia Library, June 2025.