Participating the Participatory: open discussion

Have you ever worked with participatory practices, or do you want to learn more about them? Please join us at Material from 16:00 – 18:00 on August 14 for an open discussion about what it means to live, work, and create together. We will do a short collective reading that addresses our research, questions, and findings on participation so far, and we invite you to add your inputs during some intentional silent pauses. You can step in and out whenever you feel comfortable and relevant, or shift the conversation into new directions.

Participatory practices involve a range of techniques and activities, all of which aim to transfer power from the maker/creator/researcher to the participants, who are often members of the community in a particular context. In such contexts, participants have control over the components as well as the outcomes of the project. Therefore, participatory projects rely heavily on the input from the participants. Such projects are not limited to producing art or design objects as an outcome. Instead, they are interactions between participants and objects. By paying more attention to the process of art and design rather than just the outcome, may lead to less conventional art and design projects that focus more on the social aspects.