In collaboration with the Refugee Documentation project run by the Regional Museum in Kristianstad, Malmö Museums, Kulturen Museum and the Department of Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Living Archives has developed the project Co-archiving Practices for Refugee Documentation. Interaction design master students School of Arts and Communication (K3), Malmö University were invited to join the project to prototype collaborative media concepts supporting co-archiving approaches.
The project is part of the research theme Co-archiving in Living Archives, aiming at exploring and prototyping collaborative (co-)archiving practices for involving underrepresented voices in contributing to our common archives, and in sharing the story of our times from their point of view. For more information about the background to the project, see the papers “Prototyping collaborative (co)-archiving practices – From archival appraisal to co-archival facilitation” (Nilsson, 2016) and “Becoming a co-archivist. ReDoing archival practices for democratising the access to and participation in archives” (Nilsson and Ottsen Hansen, 2017).
The Refugee Documentation project
In September 2015, the three largest museums in Skåne/Scania, the Regional Museum in Kristianstad, Malmö Museums, Kulturen Museum and the Department of Cultural Sciences, Lund University, initiated the project “Flyktingdokumentation/Refugee documentation” aimed at documenting the emergent refugee situation in Sweden. In 2015, almost 163 000 people sought asylum in Sweden (The Migration Agency, 2015). Through this initiative, the museums were able to documented and shared some of the newcomers’ experiences and stories, as well as experiences and stories from the large number of volunteers and activists that engaged in welcoming the people arriving in Malmö. One of the goals of the project is to create a large national touring exhibition based on the material captured, and in conjunction with this also organise a series of research conferences. Another goal is to produce a documentary film focusing on the issues of activism and welcoming refugee culture.
IxD master students invited to join the project
Five master students at the Interaction Design Master’s Programme at School of Arts and Communication (K3), Malmö University were invited to join the project. As part of their course in Collaborative Media they developed concepts for collaborative media platforms aimed at capturing newcomers’ experiences from their point of view. The intended user group was newcomers that have recently arrived in Sweden, but also archivists, and museum professionals interested in developing a co-archival facilitation approach.
Research questions that the students explored and worked with throughout their design work.
The design process
Three participatory workshop were conducted, and a series of co-design methods developed and applied. Each workshop focused on one of the following themes:
- What kind of stories and messages does our participant want to tell and share?
- Who is the receiver, and how does the receiver change the language and tone of a message?
- How can the story or message be told and captured from a more technical perspective?
Activities at the design workshops (Billewicz, Jacobi, Dimitrova, Okholm, and Knudsen, 2017).
Concept ideas
The design process resulted in a collection of concepts ideas; StoryMap, Conversation Archiving, and StoryBox, which are co-archiving practices that allow for communities to capture their experiences from their perspectives. For more detailed information about the design process, workshop activities, and concept ideas, see the essays written by the students:
Dimitrova, Raya (2017). Co-design research for Co-archiving practices
Knudsen, Tore (2017): StoryMap: Designing co-archiving practices for refugees in Malmö
Jacobi, Gabriel (2017). (Co-)Design and (Co-)Archive: using Participatory Design as a tool for Community Archiving
Okholm Hansen, Simone Marie (2017). Design for social change in collaboration with a community of refugees: archiving their stories in an inclusive way
For more information about this project, contact the Interaction Design Master students:
Agnieszka Billewicz (abillewicz@gmail.com), Gabriel Jacobi (gabriel.jacobi@gmail.com), Raya Dimitrova (rayadim.ux@gmail.com), Simone Okholm (simone_marie1@hotmail.com), Tore Kundsen (storetoreknudsen@gmail.com).
For more information about the Co-Archiving project, contact:
Elisabet M. Nilsson (elisabet.nilsson@mah.se), or Sofie Marie Ottsen Hansen (sofie.marie.ottsen.hansen@mah.se).
For more information about the Flyktingdokumentation/Refugee Documentation project, contact:
Dragan Nikolić (dragan.nikolic@regionmuseet.se) at Regionmuseet i Kristianstad.
Acknowledgements
All workshop participants. Regional Museum in Kristianstad, Malmö Museums, Kulturen Museum and the Department of Cultural Sciences, Lund University.