Rewrite The Year revisits 365 key headlines of the past year by inviting people to rewrite these headlines and to collectively re-invent the stories of the year behind us.

From the desert of Yemen to the streets of New Delhi, Cairo, Athens, London, Madrid, New York city, an extraordinary wave of protest has swept the world. People everywhere have taken to the streets, demanding change, reclaiming their rights to express themselves and refusing the status quo.

Using their cellphones, participants send keywords by text message to rewrite headlines one word at a time. Sometimes comical, sometimes serious, sometimes dark and sometimes visionary, the contributions are as varied as the people who encounter the project. Everyone’s words count, but only one at a time, thus ensuring a diverse series of results collectively created, and the transformed headlines are collected and archived on-line, constituting a renewed vision of the year behind us.

From protests, elections, conflicts and victories – local & international – as we move through the headlines, getting closer to current dates, yesterday’s news become today’s – we get to rewrite the present, decide how it should be told, or what it should hold. The project that starts by honoring and revisiting what’s behind us ends with a series of wishful visions for the year ahead.