There are a lot of activity, interpretation and design briefs with a strong co-creation element at the moment – here are my top co-creation tips:
· Give the start a lot of unpressured time – people in creative jobs are used to jumping on an idea and running with it so we can expect the same of community groups, but most people tend to need a bit of time to build up to committing to a bigger project. (Exception: a group of 12 year olds who will happily design you a whole museum in 20 minutes – these pictures are from a 20 minute co-creation group with some year 7s, who designed a bespoke flooring solution, social mezzanine and content plan, and created a card model.)
· Compensate for their time in refreshments, vouchers, free workshops…
· Get to know them and be led by what they care about (climate change?) or what their hobbies are (board games?) – linking that to the collection’s stories is where the best ideas come from
· Design ambition and production quality should be really high. I think of the co-creation voice as the unstructured part (the beautiful mess of humanity – love, pain, hope, fear, humour). My job is to make that resonate with co-creators and visitors, the designer’s job is to frame it in a way that elevates it to the same value as the curator’s input
· Decide where the co-creation element within that framing is and expect to have very little control over that
· The main thing is to practise your listening skills and wait for the right idea to bubble up…
Stories for spaces
