Participation Is Not Optional Decoration
From Contemporary, Socially-Engaged Art to Dementia Care: Lessons in Co-Creation
There was a moment in my museum design practice when I found myself questioning many of the strategies I was advising clients to pursue. I wanted to see what would happen if I could test those ideas outside institutional walls—without the usual constraints of budgets, timelines, or organizational politics. Out of that came the San Francisco Mobile Museum, a pop-up platform that appeared in parks and public squares. It wasn’t a container for polished exhibitions—it was an invitation. The museum became a space where passersby could contribute their own stories, objects, and perspectives. Similarly, through the Museums Now blog, I tracked how cultural institutions were shifting toward participation and public co-creation. These projects taught me that participation is less about a single format and more about cultivating a sense of ownership and agency among those involved.
This commitment carried into my work at the Walker Art Center and with other museums who hired me to help them work iteratively to create programs and experiences that were more participatory. At the Walker, one of the most popular interactives was playful and unexpected—reminding me that delight can be a powerful entry point to participation. These experiences showed me that the most effective designs often combined rigor with fun, sparking joy while creating space for deeper connection.
At the same time, I was invited to share these ideas more widely. I gave a keynote talk at CHI (the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), one of the leading international conferences on human–computer interaction, where I explored how participatory methods could be structured in public and informal learning environments. Following the talk, I was invited to expand my thinking in a chapter for the book Museum Experience Design: Crowds, Ecosystems and Novel Technologies (Springer, 2017). Writing for this collection allowed me to connect practice with theory, and to demonstrate how participatory design could be both rigorous and generative.
These lessons formed the foundation of my work in dementia care. Residents, families, and care staff are rarely given true avenues for input into the tools and experiences designed for them. By bringing participatory methods—listening sessions, rapid prototyping, iterative feedback—into these settings, I ensure that the people who use the systems shape them from the beginning. The result is not only more meaningful for residents, but also more sustainable for staff and more supportive for families.
The lesson carried forward is clear: participation is not optional decoration. It is the foundation of relevance and connection. Whether in a public plaza, a contemporary art museum, or a dementia care unit, participation transforms spaces into places of agency, dialogue, and shared humanity.