co-creation – Design Incubation

Bei Hu
Assistant Professor
Washington University in St. Louis

This research examines how cross-disciplinary co-curation and co-creation with audiences in exhibition design can enhance public engagement. Drawing on extensive experience with public-engaged design projects and museum collaborations, the study investigates how incorporating audience-generated content can transform exhibition practices.

The research identifies and analyzes specific methodologies used in co-curation within contemporary art, design, and community exhibitions. These methodologies involve collaboration among graphic designers, UX designers, interaction designers, architects, curators, and other professionals. They work together to create exhibitions that actively involve diverse audiences, including individuals from various cultural backgrounds and age groups.

A key focus of the study is the multi-step co-creation process, which includes audience participation, iterative design feedback, and collaborative content generation. This process is crucial for expanding curatorial practices and redefining how audiences interact with the work displayed in exhibitions. The research aims to demonstrate how these methodologies lead to more interactive and meaningful exhibition experiences.

In conclusion, this research offers a comprehensive examination of how co-creation with audiences and cross-disciplinary co-curation can enhance public engagement in exhibitions. It provides actionable insights for improving interaction and achieving greater social impact.

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1: Boston University on Friday, October 25, 2024.

Christopher Swift
Assistant Professor
Binghamton University

“The Limits of Control” is a body of work exploring the creative networks between graphic designers and their collaborators — human and non-human. Inspired by the work and writing of James Bridle, John Cage and Bruno Latour the project examines how the interplay of control and trust in a designer’s relationship with their network of tools (creative, cultural, technological) can be attended to, challenged, and reimagined allows us to break free of the traditional modes and methodologies and begin to explore new possibilities and new ways of seeing and being as graphic designers.

The black boxes which envelop our tools obscure the complexity and scale of the collaborative space we work in. This work makes the invisible visible and removes the designer from their imagined directive podium to be one among many in a creative and collaborative network of active participants full of agency and potential.

Showcasing case studies that demonstrate the tools of a creative network foregrounds their active participation in co-creation. Through coding in various languages new digital tools are created in which the agency of the tool itself is highlighted. These new tools undertake an intentionally nonhierarchical mode of making, decentering the designer’s role. Each study pushes the designer further away from a mode of control with the intent of asking—if there is collaborative care, respect, and trust in the creative design process then what new solutions, what new insights, what new ways of thinking and being may we discover when we look around from our new perspective.

This design research was presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 9.2: Annual CAA Conference 2023 (Virtual) on Saturday, February 18, 2023.

Tag: co-creation

Design + Co -Creation: Engaging Audiences through Cross-Disciplinary Co-Curation

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The Limits of Control: Nonhierarchical Modes of Making, Decentering the Designer

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