👥Participatory Exhibition Making

How to organise a participatory exhibition that embeds your FCH with the surrounding heritage

What is it about and why is it relevant

Participatory Exhibition Making is a vital part of the work undertaken by anyone wishing to use heritage to create a Fab City Hub. Heritage should be seen as a crucial way to map the local history of the site, and the manifold, potentially unexpected ways in which this can manifest for different stakeholders. In turn, it is an extremely important way to investigate the ways in which the potential Fab City Hub can actively engage with such history, and use it as part of any sustainable transformation.

A local exhibition would be created with the participatory exhibition making process developed within the creation of the CENTRINNO Living Archive, keeping its methodological underpinning in mind, which is in turn based on the Imagine IC approach to making participatory museums. The method itself has an emphasis on the critical heritage approach cultivated by the AHK and other critical heritage professionals, and the questions implied therein:

Who has a right to a voice? Who has a right to curate, to be part of shaping the(ir) narrative? How do exhibition makers ensure that the possibility to co-collect and co-curate the exhibition reaches as wide a network as possible? How to maintain the balance of these different actors and stakeholders in order to make an exhibition?

Approaching these questions with an emphasis on the open-minded and inclusive values promised by the Fab City Hub Principles creates the possibility for ensuring exhibitions are genuinely participatory. The steps for Participatory Exhibition Making are outlined below, following a brief introductory paragraph, and including a section focusing on values and principles.

Main Purposes 👍

Using this method could lead you to a variety of outputs:

  • A collaborative visual wall in the area;

  • A fixed exhibition space in the Fab City Hub;

  • A temporary container/room dedicated to voices;

  • A local walking route pamphlet;

  • A local issues/connected newspaper;

  • Travelling objects/items in/with local museums.

Key Steps

Before starting with the implementation steps of a participatory exhibition (Exhibition Curation Guidelines) please consider also the following aspects:

pageGuiding narration on the participatory processpagePrinciples and Values

Find here a list of key steps to organise your next participatory exhibition at your local FCH :

pageExhibition Curation Guidelines

Summary Table

Characteristic

Difficulty

Difficult

Duration

Preparation: 2-3 months (for entire process)

Facilitators I Participants

1-2 curators / potentially up to 30-40 participants

Setting

Offline

Contact

Danielle@imagineic.nl

Tagging System

#CuratePastTowardFuture, #Heritage

PreviousOral HistoriesNextGuiding narration on the participatory process

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