Public Works story studio

09/11/2025

“What is my mother to yours?
How is my father related to yours?
Yet, how do you and I know each other?
Just as red earth and pouring rain
our hearts have merged.”

- Kuṟuntokai 40, Kurinji Thinai; What he said to her, about their love)

This is a translation of ‘Red earth and pouring rain’ by the Sangam age poet Sembula Peyaneerar. It uses changes in the environment during seasonal rains as a metaphor for the curious nature of finding love. This beautiful poem, probably the most translated of all Sangam works, is from the anthology Kuṟuntokai (meaning the short-collection), a classical Tamil poetic work and the second of the eight Sangam anthologies (Ettuthokai). Rain and monsoons were one of the many natural elements that Sangam poets skillfully embedded into their works.

✺ Our story studio has been exploring Sangam Tamil poetry in our latest story commissions. Read more about how these explorations come from commercial story commissions on

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28/09/2025

You don’t need to read this; but you probably need to watch a leaf in the wind

Instead, watch trees scatter the light, or water ripple in the wind. Watch another life, for no reason; an animal grooming itself, or strangers walking on the street. These are always great stories; the kind that doesn’t weigh you down with morsels of information, worldviews, and minuscule epiphanies you’d be fine never knowing.

When minds are saturated, it breeds apathy and indecision; a paralysis that is both emotional and rational.

That’s when silence becomes the only story you need.

This week, we're pausing the stories. Back next week.

📽 Nui Malama

14/09/2025

This week’s story by Alain Parizeau explores how sonic texture shapes rhythm, contrast, and emotional resonance, tuning the meaning of an image the way layout tunes thought.

Referencing Mike Mills’ 1999 documentary AIR: Eating, Sleeping, Waiting and Playing, Alain writes about how ambient sound can carry more narrative weight than visuals alone. From minor chords as typographic serifs to lo-fi synths as geometric sans, sound and typography begin to speak the same emotional language.

Read on if you’re curious about how sound behaves like halftone, like handwritten annotation, like editorial emphasis. Find it under ‘more links’ from the links in bio.

✺ Our free story subscription comes via email. It’s a rich mix of stories, food for thought, storied things you can buy, and insights into commercial story design. Link in bio, subscribe free 👆🏽

25/08/2025

“My first glimpse into how work and worship could be the same stream came through a master mask maker in Ambalangoda. There seemed to be something greater in his craft than the prospect of money.”

This week, PW Co-creator Shamalee shares a story about a master mask maker in Ambalangoda whose devotion to his craft revealed a truth she hadn’t encountered before: that the distance we place between work and worship isn’t inevitable.

“He wasn’t working on a major commission, but he was carving another spectacular mask to exhibit at Shilpa, the state craft exhibition, the following year. Compared to Colombo’s ‘successful’ artists, he seemed uninterested in visibility, interviews, or recognition. What he carried instead was an air of rare contentment.”

The story goes on to ask: what if worship is not a place, but a quality of presence? What if the real exchange that sustains us is not only money for effort, but curiosity and meaning?

“Worship isn’t only in temples, churches, or mosques; it’s in the act of being deeply there for something. Worship is not a place, but a quality of presence. Worship isn’t in ritual alone, but in how we show up to the world.”

It’s a story about choosing work in what we carry a devotion for.

Find the link to the full story ‘Work is worship’, in our linktree in bio.

29/06/2025

When two spirits guide you along life, you see the world differently; from more than one perspective. Sometimes, you see what everyone else is missing.

You know that energy holds all the shades of the spectrum, and that each wavelength has a sacred function.

With more than one spirit guiding, you come from where night and day are in transcendence, when the world reveals all the colours of the rainbow in its natural unfolding.

✺ In First Nations tribes in Canada, no moral gradient was assigned to gender or sexuality; a person was judged for their contributions to their tribe and for their character. Stories of the Sioux tribe say that before a child is born, their soul stands before The Creator spirit, who offers the two usual choices: a bow and arrows signifying the traditional masculine role, or a basket signifying the conventional feminine. As the child reaches, sometimes, The Creator would playfully switch or move the hands.

✺ Native cultures recognized a spectrum of gender roles, which typically included female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male, and transgender individuals. It was considered highly offensive by the entire community to enforce a Two Spirit into the traditional role of their biological gender, which was against their very nature. Each tribe has its own specific terminology for two-spirits; the Navajo use Nádleehí (one who is transformed), the Lakota refer to Winkté (a male with a compulsion to act as a female), the Ojibwe call it Niizh Manidoowag (two spirit), and the Cheyenne use Hemaneh (half man, half woman), among others. In 1989, during a gathering in Winnipeg, Manitoba, LGBTQ Natives adopted the term ‘Two Spirit’ from the Ojibwe language to identify themselves within their tribes and distinguish from other racial groups. This term serves as a unifying concept for the diverse gender identities acknowledged across various tribes. The term ‘Two Spirit’ was introduced as a universal term in English to foster broader understanding, although its meaning may not always translate the complete or exact meaning of Native languages.

✺ 1915, Untitled, Visual Instruction Department Lantern Slides.

24/05/2025

They don’t speak.
But they remember.

Not in books or devices or stone, but in rings, in scent, in sway. Trees have held space for histories far longer than we have recorded them.

A forest is not just a landscape.
It is a witness stand.

To treaties whispered before kingdoms fell. To beginnings disguised as accidents. To lovers parting and pilgrims passing and revolutions rooting.

Trees have overheard the human world without ever interrupting it.
And still, they stay—
not because they are indifferent,
but because they know that presence is its own kind of memory.

In every country, in every language, stories remain with trees in the background of the telling.

Sometimes it bears fruit. Sometimes it does not. But it is there. Still. A living witness.

✺ Subscribers, check your inbox for the full story: “The Mango (Part 3): histories shaped under the mango tree” — on mangoes as witnesses to Sri Lanka’s spiritual and colonial histories. This story was emailed last week.

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18/05/2025

“Just about everything is wrapped in plastic sleeves. We embalm objects not because they are precious, but because we can.’’

Our weekly story release ‘Why things should be allowed to die,’ is about when preservation becomes pathology.

✺ If you’ve subscribed to our free stories, check your email for the full story link.

✺ Sign up for the free subscription and get all these stories in your email, months before they trickle down to social media. It’s a rich mix of short stories, poems, food for thought, stories you can buy, and insights into our commercial story design practice. Link in bio, subscribe free 👆🏽

Image
2020, various plastic carrier bags, Divotomezove

18/05/2025

“Just about everything is wrapped in polymer sleeves. We embalm objects not because they are precious, but because we can.’’

Our weekly story release ‘Why things should be allowed to die,’ is about when preservation becomes pathology.

✺ If you’ve subscribed to our free stories, check your email for the full story link.

✺ Sign up for the free subscription and get all these stories in your email, months before they trickle down to social media. It’s a rich mix of short stories, poems, food for thought, stories you can buy, and insights into our commercial story design practice. Link in bio, subscribe free 👆🏽

Image
2016, Still Life with a Plastic Bag, Edna Winti

29/03/2025

Stories slip through our fingers in the digital rush, vanishing into feeds, lost in the endless scroll. But a book—however fragile—holds on. It becomes weight, texture, presence. It gathers dust, softens at the edges, and in its mortal ways, somehow leaves a more lasting impression than a post.

made a book to keep a memory. He could have let it dissolve into the internet, but instead, he chose paper and ink to assemble that story. “Had I uploaded this story to the internet somewhere first I don’t think I would have made this book,” he says. As he sees it, a book is a fire around which a community can one day gather to connect.

Read the full story in our blog. Find it in the linktree 👆🏽

20/01/2025

Terror as an aesthetic experience.
Read the full story... 👇

Terror as an aesthetic experience