Making Worlds with Others

Personal Reflections on Participatory Practice

In our first meeting with our group tutor Cecilia Wee, she handed out questions related to participatory practice for each of us to reflect on and contribute to a discussion. Mine was: “How can we make relationships more equal?”.
I answered that as humans we are inherently equal and unequal to others, we have fundamental rights and we’re equal because we’re all human beings; while we’re all inherently unequal due to our differences. Differences in identity, physicality, age, backgrounds, likes, dislikes, and more. These differences are what make our relationships dynamic and sometimes imbalanced. I explained that we need to find an equaliser, or level playing field, to create equal relationships. I explained further, gesturing to my group mates in the room, that we are all equals in this situation by virtue of being students at the RCA in this batch, despite our differences in ages, backgrounds, skills and disciplines.

This thought of an “equaliser” or flattening the hierarchy is what comes to mind when I reflect on what we achieved with the workshop we designed, prepared and conducted for the Masbro Youth Club. In the video part of the submission for the Making Worlds module, we present our planning, our preparation, and our experience of the workshop with the Masbro kids. Our major focus was the VibesTM we wanted to create for the workshop participants (and ourselves!). ‘We want to be vibing!’, was the underlying motto of our combined group XY.

DECONSTRUCTING THE ‘VIBES’:

In one of the earlier lectures Kaweesi Mark explained his community practice Break Fast Jam, and how he uses breakdancing and other fun activities to make the experience enjoyable and bring together passionate and talented young people to connect and exchange skills and knowledge. He incorporated urban culture “to attract people and to bring young people because it speaks more to them”.

I was inspired by his idea of designing community practices that also shows the people they’re working with how good they are, a chance to showcase their skills and be creative, which is what we incorporated in the workshop.

We were conscious about the atmosphere we were creating for the workshop. The implications of a local community, in this case a youth club which primarily works with students from disadvantaged backgrounds, being invited into the Royal College of Art (a privileged institution) for a workshop- as a group we were adamant about not making it a “learning experience” where we tell them what to do and they have no choice but to do it.

How did we create a non-threatening, cheerful, yet activity-focused workshop?

The Space:

We arranged all the seating around one long table with materials arranged in the middle, so that Masbro kids and RCA kids could sit together and make collages. This worked out well for us as the seating kept the momentum going, they found inspiration from the image choices or layout choices of their friends and they had the choice to collaborate or work individually. One thing that didn’t go as planned was that the moment they arrived they all picked seats next to each other on one side of the table, which limited our attempts at opening them up.

Since we hadn’t met the group beforehand and didn’t know the ages and the number of kids attending the workshop, having a flexible structure with three activity stations (collage, stop motion, AR) enabled kids who finished faster to move on to whatever activity interested them, while still keeping it optional for all the participants to do all three.

The Ambience:

We experimented with turning down the harsh overhead lights of the room to prevent eye strain and make it more welcoming. We had music playing from the beginning, an assigned ‘DJ’ who set the mood by asking each participant to add their current favourite songs to the playlist. We were also mindful of playing songs without swear words and mostly upbeat electronica.

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We set the mood by putting up examples of collaged art and posters on the wall to serve as visual inspiration on how to use type and images, and incorporated plenty of animated examples in our introductory presentation.

We preplanned how to set the tone for talking to them, or how to approach each interaction. For example, asking questions in a tone that was casual and accommodating, a “if you don’t have a phone to use the app right now, you can do it on mine, no pressure” way of interacting.

We did away with the top-down, one-way conduction of workshops and focused on the Vibes ( our understanding of flattening the hierarchy) to make the mood more open to creativity and confidence among the youth group. In fact some of the kids didn’t want to take a break when we announced one and wanted to continue making their collaged animations!

It was not a case of “chocolate covered broccoli”, a term I have heard some of my friends in the field of education use, where learning outcomes are “disguised” as enjoyable activities (which doesn’t sound very effective, as that sounds like it would taste terrible). I wholeheartedly believe our workshop was a different recipe altogether, where our approach didn’t seem disingenuous to the Masbro kids.

The Theme:

Our theme was Dreams, as that was something everybody could relate to. Dreams are generally surreal and comedic, with things and situations that don’t make sense, a theme that lends well to the medium of collage. The participants could choose to tell a story about a funny dream they had, but if they didn’t dream or couldn’t remember their dreams, it could be interpreted as ambitions or their future goals and desires. They could create whatever they wanted.

Participatory Practice:

I think this experience will influence my participatory practice going forward by not overthinking the final outcome and valuing the fun process. Designing a positive experience by meticulously engineering the “vibes”, but also allowing for enough leeway to accommodate things that could change on the fly. We didn’t expect that we would outnumber the number of kids that came from the youth club, but handled it pretty well.

Did my practice grow when others were involved? With any case of successful teamwork, building upon each other’s ideas always leads to a more refined outcome where people with different perspectives can point out the pros and cons of your ideas and add on to it. For example in our initial

group discussion during independent study time, I suggested using collages and the school printing resource to make sure they can make a compiled booklet to take home- but my group mates added to that idea in such wonderful insightful ways that we built on it to arrive at Making+Moving.

The extroverted and introverted members all contributed in different ways that played to their strengths, which was something I appreciated in the workshop, as each member’s contribution was undeniable whether in the spotlight or behind the scenes.

Our time with Masbro was too short for us to gather meaningful connections that may have influenced our practice. It would have been good to have more contact with them, to maybe listen to their stories and help them represent it with more intention, and have more of a genuine impact on their lives.

Maybe it’s important that we view this workshop as one of many that have been provided to the youth group. It can be difficult to look at the experience in any other way, because it feels like a bit of a one-off. It is unlikely that most of us will meet or work with the youth group again. I wondered if there was a lasting relationship with the college and these local communities that we brought in for this module. We didn’t do the truly hard work in participatory practice, which is gaining the trust of the local communities by actually spending enough time with them and understanding them. Regardless, we managed to create a positive experience for all parties involved, which was rewarding.

The results of our workshop: good vibes only!

The real community engagment :)