Yannick Oho Bambe | Stories That Connect Us to Our Shared Humanity
- Mark Walmsley FRSA AGSM
- Aug 10
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
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Meet Yannick Oho Bambe.
In this interview, Mark created Yannick Oho Bambe's fantasy cultural year from the answers to some easy questions to which there were no wrong answers.
Mark had a magic wand and a time machine at his disposal, so expect some surprises, laughs, anecdotes and conversational detours.
Yannick Oho Bambe is a creative writer, storyteller and filmmaker whose work explores one of the most fundamental aspects of being human: our relationships with one another.
Based in British Columbia, Canada, Yannick is interested in the stories we tell about ourselves and each other, and in how thoughtful storytelling can create greater understanding, connection and human flourishing. His work is rooted in reflection and communication, exploring themes including identity, belonging and the relationships that shape our lives.
For Yannick, storytelling is more than an act of creative expression. It can be a means of bringing people together.
That philosophy emerged strongly when Yannick joined Arts & Culture Network founder Mark Walmsley for his ACN interview.
Asked to describe what lies at the heart of his creative practice, he returned repeatedly to relationships: how we communicate, how we understand one another and how stories can help us recognise the humanity we share.
Yannick works across creative writing and storytelling, using both handwriting and digital tools as part of his reflective process. Rather than treating writing simply as a finished product, he is interested in the process itself: taking time to think, observe and explore the experiences that connect people.
His approach is particularly concerned with human flourishing through relationships. In an increasingly divided and fast-moving world, Yannick sees value in creating spaces in which people can reflect, listen and encounter perspectives different from their own.
It is an outlook that gives his creative practice a wider social dimension. Stories can entertain us, but they can also challenge assumptions, amplify voices and build bridges between people and communities.
Yannick Oho Bambe's Fantasy Cultural Year ... with a magic wand and a time machine to hand.
Every Arts and Culture Network full member is invited to embark on a Fantasy Cultural Year—an imaginary journey inspired by their passions, creativity and curiosity.
What would you do with a year in which money was no object, the world was your stage, and your work had the potential to bring people closer together?
For writer, storyteller and filmmaker Yannick Oho Bambe, the answer begins with stories.
In his Fantasy Cultural Year with Arts & Culture Network founder Mark Walmsley, Yannick is invited to imagine an extraordinary proposition: a wealthy family foundation wants to fund him for a year to travel the world, sharing reflective storytelling through workshops designed to encourage peace, understanding and human connection.
It becomes a journey through words, music, dance, art, theatre, film and sport — but, running through it all, a journey into what connects us as human beings.
It begins in New York
Before the adventure properly begins, we find Yannick in New York, close to his favourite building, the Empire State Building.
He is sitting at a sidewalk café. His drink of choice is an organic juice, and beside him is Deep Work by Cal Newport. Through his headphones comes the sound of traditional jazz.
It is an appropriately reflective beginning for a writer whose work is concerned with relationships and human flourishing.
Then comes the proposition that changes everything. A wealthy family foundation wants Yannick to take his ideas around the world. His reflective stories will travel with him, becoming the foundation for workshops and conversations in places where dialogue and greater understanding might make a difference.
There could be media attention, university lectures, a book deal and perhaps even a TED Talk. Where should he begin?
Yannick chooses Washington DC, close to the White House.
In Washington, Yannick's cultural year begins to acquire another dimension.
Why should storytelling exist only on the page?
Together, we imagine Word Steps, a hybrid festival bringing poetry and dance together — words expressed not only through voices but through movement.
Afterwards, Yannick opts for Asian food, with Thai or Korean cuisine among his choices.
But his thoughts are already moving towards somewhere very different.
Asked where Word Steps might travel next, Yannick chooses Tel Aviv.
It is a significant choice for an imagined project centred on the possibility of storytelling contributing to peace and understanding.
The journey then moves to Senegal, combining Yannick's interest in Africa with another extraordinary cultural experience.
We visit an imagined, technologically enhanced gallery where virtual reality transforms the way we encounter art. The featured artist is Jean-Michel Basquiat. Rather than simply standing in front of a Basquiat, Yannick puts on a virtual-reality headset and steps inside the artwork — experiencing it as a 360-degree, three-dimensional environment.
It is another form of storytelling: words have become movement, and now paintings have become places.
The Fantasy Cultural Year also makes room for one of Yannick's other interests: football, with the prospect of experiencing the excitement of a World Cup along the way.
Next comes a week immersed in the cultural life of London.
Music is an important part of Yannick's cultural world, so a performance by jazz musician Richard Bona makes the itinerary. Then it is time for theatre.
Yannick heads to Shakespeare's Globe, with Hamlet emerging as the play of choice — perhaps an especially appropriate work for someone fascinated by reflection, relationships and the complexity of human behaviour.
The cultural menu expands further with musical theatre and then opera, with Tosca among the experiences imagined during the conversation.
There is still room for cinema. But this is a Fantasy Cultural Year, so an ordinary trip to the movies isn't enough. Yannick heads to Las Vegas to experience Avatar in a spectacular immersive cinema environment.
From handwriting and reflective storytelling to virtual reality and immersive cinema, the journey has travelled across both geography and the ways in which stories themselves can be experienced.
Finally comes one of the most revealing questions of the Fantasy Cultural Year.
Yannick can have lunch with one great figure from history. Who would he choose?
His thoughts turn to two people: Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.
It is difficult to imagine two choices more closely aligned with the journey he has just taken. Both understood the power of words. Both confronted division. Both demonstrated that communication, courage and a belief in our common humanity could help transform relationships between people.
And perhaps that brings Yannick's Fantasy Cultural Year full circle. It begins with a storyteller sitting quietly in New York with a book, some jazz and an organic juice.
It ends with the possibility of sitting across a table from one of history's great advocates for reconciliation and human dignity.
Between those two moments lies a journey around the world — through storytelling, poetry, dance, art, music, theatre, opera, film and sport.
But the real journey is about something much simpler.
Listening to one another. Understanding one another. And discovering the stories that connect us to our shared humanity.
Yannick Oho Bambe's contact details
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Mark Walmsley FRSA FCIM AGSM
Chief Culture Vulture
Arts & Culture Network
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