An arts organization in a disenfranchised community needed to understand ways of conducting ethical research that increased social capital.
COLLABORATOR
Historic Westside Cultural Arts Council
SKILLS
Action Research, Field Research, Interviewing, Participatory Design Workshops, Logistics, Community Engagement, Visualization Design
Team
Jess Lewis, Mother Mamie Moore, Tracy Bates, Dr. Chris Le Dantec
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The Historic Westside Cultural Arts Council (HWCAC) and Jessica Lewis collaborated with the goal of amplifying untold community histories at the source: the community. The stories in this memoir are told, collected, and curated by members of Atlanta’s Westside communities. Seven residents learned interviewing techniques, outlined what they wanted to explore, and collected oral histories from other residents.
The experimental process resulted in a research methodology that rejected traditional purely extractive methods, instead opting to build social capital among participants.
About the initiative:
What we made together:
How we did it:
1.
All potential collaborators met for an introductory meeting. In this meeting, we laid out our broad goals for the potential partnership. Because there was alignment in goals and vision, we moved forward to figure out what we wanted to bring to the community.
2.
Over the course of six months and many collaborator meetings and tabling at community events, I started becoming familiar with the community I was going to work with. More importantly, they became used to seeing me. Mother Mamie Moore, Tracy Bates, and I used our collective observations to define research project goals, structure, and approach.
3.
Using these macro-level insights, I created three design directions and presented them to Mother Mamie Moore and Tracy Bates. We used pieces of each to create a unique approach meant to light a fire in residents' hearts: a community biography created by the community.
Residents would take two workshops where they would learn oral history interviewing techniques and practice how to conduct interviews. We would create a list of interviewing questions together based on a specific topic they decided on.
I created objects to help facilitate participants' experiences, inspired by Bill Gavers' Cultural Probes.
Tracy Bates led recruitment of the first participant group. They completed the workshops and, armed with tools and insight, they interviewed community members they wanted to hear from.
4.
The first workshop and group of participants dive into interviewing techniques and defining the questions they want to ask other community members.
After the first participant group completed their interviews, all collaborators met to parse workshop pain points and areas for improvement in the next iteration. We realized that participants needed defined space to practice their skills to feel confident before going off on their own. We also realized they needed support throughout the process.
So, we added a third workshop to the process, where we asked community residents to be interviewed in a controlled environment with myself present and giving mentorship. We accompanied all workshops with a family-style meal to create comeraderie and a sense of familiarity. We also experimented with me holding weekly office hours at times that participants defined as good times.
5.
Tracy Bates led recruitment for the second participant group and I created a flyer to advertise the project. The changes made created more confident participants who were deeply engaged with the project and felt supported throughout the project.
6.
We led intimate walkthroughs of their interviews, where participants would talk about what impacted them about both the process and the stories they gathered. This allowed us to develop an understanding of what was important to both the individual and the group, collecting data that directed content and visual design of the interactive community biography.
7.
Mother Mamie Moore, Tracey Bates, and I collaborated with Dean Royster to create a project celebration and graduation. I organized all logistics, ensuring all participants had transportation to the event. We used this event to celebrate the participants' efforts.
8.
The visualization was exhibited at Eyedrum Gallery in downtown Atlanta in Spring of 2016.
