1. Building trust/ lessening apprehension in the community when working on a public art/ design for social change project.
- Define public art/ design for social change
- Forms of distrust/ apprehension that we encountered during the various stages of the project,
- What makes people apprehensive (social context, previous experience, not understanding art, more pressing problems to solve, is there anything in art/ artists/ graphic design that makes people apprehensive etc.)
- How is trust established?
- What we did for the 400lb Baby project, what worked, what did not work
- Analyze the process, compare with other projects, give recommendations
- Public art involves publicly shared spaces, who are the stakeholders, how do they interact, what are they concerned about?
viii.Different types of communication with the different stakeholders?
- What tools has Graphic Design that can be helpful when building trust:
1.Design Thinking
2.The Power to engage
3.Visual Communication – a picture is worth a thousand words
4.Seeing patters/ relationships
5.Introducing a sense of wonder
6.Make things visible, attract attention
7.Creativity
8.“Provide plausible theories for change”
3.From Like to Act
- What does it take for people to move from passively liking something to actually doing something, analyze our experience with 400lb Baby and compare to other projects.
- When/ where is the tipping point? How do you get there? How does psychology, sociology, organizational theory explain what happens? Can design thinking/ process/outcomes help the process?
- How can visual communication/ graphic design be helpful, what else is important, what seems to be the necessary mix of process, steps, players, visible and invisible factors?
- How do you retain interest?
3. Use 400lb Baby project, do research about similar projects and come up with insights that add to the greater discourse on design for social impact.
- Talk about building trust. Hold interviews before and after.
- Document communication with the various stakeholder groups – City, neighborhood associations, businesses, residents, participants, observers.
- Discuss how a public art project can reflect a community – talk about the process, what, whose input did we use, how did people respond to the artwork, which themes, art works were more/ not successful and why.
- Trace change – interview the various stakeholders and participants, trace any newly created connections or ideas that might have sprung from the project.
Other Ideas:
4.What does it take to make social change sustainable? What steps in all stages of the project could you make to provide for sustainability of the project?
5.What does it mean/take to empower the community? Can you do that through graphic design/ visual communication? What else is necessary?
6.How can we communicate to a community that design for social change is “inherently exploratory and uncertain”, but it is a way of learning, building new relationships, defining a common vision? Design for social impact is not just the final outcome, it is a process of co-creation, bringing people and minds together, aligning for common goals, discovering common goals, values. It could be a healing process, requires time, submission of personal interests for the whole. Can a community embrace uncertainty, iterations, failure, risk?
7.How can we explain (through visuals, interaction, events or words etc.) the importance, the need, the magic of (public) art especially when it comes to creating or strengthening a community?
8.“While collaboration can be highly productive in solving inter-organizational problems, conflict also has a clear role in challenging existing frameworks and forcing … change in directions considered by at least some members to be positive. Both aspects deserve equal attention, since failure to recognize the importance of conflict leads to a preference for the status quo and an implicit adoption of the viewpoint of powerful stakeholders”, Cynthia Hardy and Nelson Phillips, “Strategies of Engagement: Lessons from the Critical Examination of Collaboration and Conflict in an Inter-organizational Domain.”
- Can conflict (surprise) be helpful when working with a community? When? How? What other factors are important?
- Types of conflict?
- Can you orchestrate conflict?
9.Research different community development (empowerment) projects and see if I can add to Frog’s Collective Action Toolkit or IDEO’s HCD Toolkit?