DESIGN-THINKING & COLLABORATION THE FUTURE IS RADICAL

Màiri LaffertyDaskalopoulos Curator of Engagement

This presentation:

• Projects that work across digital & real-world spaces

• User-centred design as a vehicle for radical collaboration

• Ideas for nurturing your own digital collaborations

National Galleries of Scotland

Art for Scotland, inspiration for the world

three sites

one collection / (1st century AD – present)

public programme / exhibitions , events, workshops, research

Visitors, in their daily lives, are an amalgam of curator, gallerist, researcher, archivist, consumer, critic, journalist – young people in particular are more sophisticated and streamlined in their maintenance of their gallery of images/links that represent them and their friends.

⎯ Mark Wiggly

The organisation, which is bound by context, audience & collaboration, is no longer the authority on visual curatorship, representation, censorship or knowledge production

What are the challenges we face as an organisation?

• irrelevant

• expensive

• time consuming

• challenging

we don’t understand our audiences…

Contemporary Art is all about process; it’s the process through which an idea is transformed into an artwork.

⎯ Miranda Sawyer

What is design-thinking?

1. Methoddigital content

2. Relevancein-gallery experiences

3. The futuredigital & in-gallery: across the divide working with audiences as part of programme…

1. Method

Digital content across the organisation

Why isn’t our content reaching the people we think we’re making it for…?

• reach & impact

• meaningful connection

• collaborative creation

• high-quality

Frankly Green & Webb ⎯

Frankly, Green + Webb were commissioned to deliver training to enable the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) team to improve the quantity & quality of digital content created by the wider organisation.

Ours ⎯

What makes high quality digital content for the National Galleries of Scotland?

Key factors to ensure digital content has an impact:

• audience needs, behaviours & motivations

• organisation brand, goals & resources

• platform requirements & usage

• context cultural, social, relevant

things the participants said or did that surprised you or memorable quotes

main themes or learnings from the interview

things that matter most to the participant

new topics or questions to explore in future interviews/ discussions/ research

Why collaborate?

• expertisefrom across the organisation

• rolesclearly defined , offer us more effective ways of working

Off the screen & into the gallery

Audience-centred, design-led approach to the creation of content, experiences, resources & spaces…

2. Relevance

Dance design project with dancers & designers

• making the case for radical collaboration

• creative practice vs live-brief

• the left brain/right brain divide

Why collaborate?

• opening up opening up our spaces to other art forms

• radical collaboration a real partnership : artist-artist, institution, audience

• audience creating for audience their live-brief, our live-challenge

Mindful Gallery Guide with external experts, cross-field

• experiential over intellectual

• immersive over discursive

• memory, the mind & art

Why collaborate?

• different ways of thinking not ‘thinking’ & new expertise

• the unknown unknownswhat does the response tell us…?

Visitor Journey Mapping

• when, where, why?

• needs

• points of exchange

Why collaborate?

• new technologies how can we sue them to make the ‘jobs’ easier?

• simple things/complex beings dealing with the polarity

3. The future

Happy Here with the University of Dundee

• designing for humans

• research in action

• working with audiences

HappyHere is a participatory, immersive light experience created for Pig Rock Bothy that uses colour & light to explore how we feel.

Why collaborate?

• design-thinkingcutting-edge practice & the space to experiment

• longer-term evaluation the university can use this data as part of long-term research, something we cannot

• a fresh look at our spaces, audiences & opportunities

The goal of design,-thinking is to understand :

• needs

• behaviours

• problems

• opportunities

Ideas for nurturing your own digital collaborations

1. Audience: why this, why now, why them?

2. Partners: why this, why now, why them?

3. Roles – clear

4. Be generous – make the space

5. Not working? Is working? Change it

6. Be wrong

7. Reflect – this can be the hardest part…

What?

So, what?

Now what?