The Grumpus: Introduction & Outline

The Grumpus is a fifteen-to-eighteen month community engagement project that will be lead by the Applied Creativity team. It will engage with a number of teams from across the Public Libraries and Engagement directorate. It will focus on empowering the creative expression of children and exploring how that creative expression informs the creative process of adults. This is an inversion of the general community cultural development practices when working with children. The engagement is intergenerational and focuses on building strong communities of practise through creating a large scale, public exhibition.

The Grumpus framework was trialled in 2018 by the Applied Creativity and Young People and Families teams. The outcome was a large scale physical installation in The Edge space, augmented by school holiday activities. There were learnings from that process that were incorporated into an (unsuccessful) application to the Australian Council for the Arts in 2019. Those learnings underpin The Grumpus proposal. The Grumpus will be developed July 2020 through February 2021, then delivered March 2021 and continue through July 2022:

Initial public programming would be delivered March through October 2021

Finalised fabrication and installation would be undertaken November and December 2021, with the exhibition opening coinciding with the first Friday of the 2021 Summer Festival period.

Ongoing programming and iteration of the exhibition will continue December 2021 through 10 July 2022 (end of the term 2 school holidays).

Deinstallation, evaluation and finalisation of documentation processes would be completed 31 August 2022.

The exhibition could be left in situ for a longer period of time, depending on organisational needs.

A key consideration of the project will be sustainability in materials used and replicability of the program by third parties without fully kitted out Fabrication lab; public libraries, cultural institutions, education providers, not-for-profit organisations etc. Conscious decision making processes will be applied to ensure these considerations are taken into account at each stage of the process. Conscientious processes for documentation will be implemented with all aspects of the project. Wherever feasible The Grumpus will be delivered by staff (full time, part time and casual) in collaboration with the community. Use of contractors would be the exception and not the rule.

Public Programming

Assumptions

There will be no additional exhibition programming as The Grumpus as the exhibition is an outcome and byproduct of ongoing programming. This programming will be developed and delivered by teams across State Library, leading up to and throughout the exhibition period.

Elements of the programming will engage with external artists to deliver specialist elements. It is assumed that these artists - visual and literary - will engage with The Grumpus as casual staff with the Applied Creativity team. It is envisaged that they will be early career professionals with an interest in community development and engagement practise. As the program will be fully developed before launch we will be able to accurately schedule and cost these roles. These casual staff will work in tandem with full-time/part-time staff to ensure the relationship developed between audience and State Library is sustainable after The Grumpus.

All public programming for The Grumpus will be planned, written up and ready to go to market before the program commences in earnest in March/April 2021 (the school holiday period). The development period (October 2020 through February 2021) and production period (March 2021 through June 2022) will not overlap, allowing staff to deliver the project unfettered by other considerations.

This program will comprise 80% of the Applied Creativity public program for the 2020-2022 period (with the exception of delivering the Fabrication Lab space). The involvement and impact on other teams will be considered and built into The Grumpus during the development process, informing the final project plan. Specific teams are called out in the copy below and initial conversations have been had with those teams. Those conversations are reflected there.

The Grumpus marketing and communication plan would commence delivery during the 2020-2021 Summer Festival program. Teaser and tester programming will be delivered as a part of that program.

Marketing and Communications

The Grumpus will be a single, unified program marketed as such. The Marketing and Communications team will be a key partner in the development and delivery of The Grumpus. They will be involved in the planning and execution of the overarching process, informing programmatic design choices and building marcomms opportunities into the process.

This is an integrated model of program development previously implemented by The Edge program, where the Communications Manager and Designer had a voice in both the conceptualisation and implementation of a public program; if they could not sell it, the program did not proceed. This was not a reason to discontinue a program because the marketing and communications team did not understand it, it required the programming team to better articulate the work. Equally, if it was too esoteric, the program went back to the drawing board. This will require deep engagement with the Marketing and Communications team from the outset of The Grumpus through to the project conclusion.

The Marketing and Communication teams will be brought into the conversation from the very beginning of the process, allowing them to have input into program design and informing the decision making process as an equal partner. A comprehensive marketing strategy and plan to operationalise that will be developed in first quarter 2020/2021 alongside the broader program development. Ideally we will explore how the community can work with the Marketing and Communications team in the development and delivery of marketing. We will explore how we can activate the community to advocate and market the work on behalf of the State Library.

Consultation with community partners, education and industry

In the development and delivery of The Grumpus State Library will undertake consultation with internal and external stakeholders. Grumpus is an opportunity to connect the new audiences associated with external stakeholders with the services, facilities, spaces and collections under the stewardship of a range of internal stakeholders. Grumpus will be a unique point of entry for these underrepresented audiences to interface with a range of SLQ teams. External stakeholders will include program partners and experts to provide insight into how the program can be best delivered. It is intended that The Grumpus be a model of best practise and seeking objective feedback will help with this. The framework will be properly designed during the development phase of the project and the process will continue throughout and after The Grumpus project has been delivered. This will feed into the evaluation process and program documentation.

Next Library Satellite 2021

If Next Library Satellite proceeds in 2021, The Grumpus will integrate into the State Library offering through an Interactive Session practical workshop with delegates, Ignite Talk a presentation or small exhibition of the program outcomes as a part of Next Library’s Activations program to date somewhere in the State Library. A larger commitment will not be feasible, as it is also assumed that the Applied Creativity team will be responsible for the delivery of the Fun Palace project at the same time (October) and that project’s potential integration into Next Library.

Physical Installation Design

The program will engage with children, working to develop a conceptual framework of what their imaginary world looks like in the form of a creative expression developed through a workshop process with external artists; an imaginarium. Workshop coordinators will work closely with a range of SLQ teams to ensure that these workshops will draw from collection materials as an initial point of inspiration.

These imaginariums will be handed over to a community of designers - professionals, students and other talented community members - to translate these art objects into designs that can be fabricated, writ large, out of cardboard, glue and other recycled materials. These large scale designs will be fabricated by State Library staff in collaboration with community members, partner organisations and volunteers for eventual installation in the SLQ Gallery in December 2021.

This program will form the cornerstone of the Applied Creativity public program for the 2021-2022 financial year, being incorporated into the public workshop and Hack the Evening programs.

Narrative Construction

Layered into the Physical Installation Design process a professional writer will work alongside the external artist to gather the stories behind the Imaginariums. The writer will work with community members to shape these stories to form the backbone of The Grumpus narrative that will be installed in the gallery alongside the sculptural works.

This narrative will be represented through the exhibition’s didactic material, an invisible soundscape (see below), The Grumpus’ online presence (see below) and the physical and digital publication of The Grumpus program (see below).

Language Making

Working with the kuril daghan team - specifically Des - to develop and design a language to accompany the exhibition. This language would be founded in Australian Indigenous languages and implement throughout the exhibition.

Interactive Projection Design

The Grumpus will feature a panoramic projection work that will exploit the recently installed WatchOut projection system recently installed in the SLQ Gallery developed in the Unity or Unreal game engine. This will allow the projection to be interactive, generative and take a wide range of content inputs from across Queensland to be incorporated into the exhibition.

James Collins from the Inclusive Communities team will head up the development of the projection alongside the physical and literary components of the project. These workshops will not be limited to being delivered from the State Library space in South Brisbane. They will be delivered remotely through regional libraries and IKCs, with outcomes being incorporated into the projection in South Brisbane.

The outcome for this program will form the basis for the Online Exhibition for the project (see below).

Iterative Exhibition Design

With each school holiday period, further groups of children will work towards developing new Imaginariums to be incorporated into The Grumpus. These iterations will be designed, fabricated and installed by the following school holidays, augmenting and replacing exhibition elements, creating new work to be explored, providing reason for return visitation. Pieces that are removed from the exhibition might be installed elsewhere in the State Library to connect the work in the gallery with the broader space.

Augmentative Exhibition Design

Once the exhibition is in the space a series of community workshops will be developed and delivered with the community to augment the exhibition space. This could include animatronics and interaction design, colouring in (finishing the raw cardboard with art, craft and projection), XR (virtual and augmented reality) design, storytelling and performance making and immersive sound design

Overlay Workshops

All of the above process is public programming contributing to the exhibition execution. This will be further built on through the Summer and Winter Festival Young People and Families programs during this time, delivered but various stakeholders from across State Library. These programs will be designed to respond to the space and engage the community in adding content to the exhibition through a structured process. These workshops might include art making, storytelling, making, dance, drama, music, interaction design, sculpture, game design etc.

Projection Mapping

This was raised by Marketing and Communications as an exciting idea. It would involve engaging with a high end (Robyn Fox tier) projection artist to work with emerging projection artists to create an outdoor projection mapping on the State Library building. It is seen as an opportunity to externalise what is happening inside of the gallery externally. This would require external/additional money both from a facilitation perspective (artists fees) and equipment hire. We would look to work with some of the Commercial Services staff to scope and cost this, but would estimate we’re talking $50k+ price range.

Outcomes

SLQ Gallery Exhibition

Artworks developed as part of the above programming would be shaped into a cohesive exhibition that showcases the creative output of the community. This work would be delivered by the Applied Creativity and Exhibition teams.

The exhibition, as mentioned above, would evolve over the life of the exhibition, targeting the change over of elements leading into each school holiday period, as a result of work done during the previous school holiday period. Retired elements could be distributed throughout other areas of the State Library.

The projection elements would change more frequently, with ongoing workshops reshaping the content dynamically.

Audio elements of the exhibition will be twofold; an overarching soundscape that is played throughout the space. This would be tied to the projection elements of the exhibition and a radio enabled or spatially mapped audio installation that can be explored invisibly via a bespoke receiver or phone based app.

The installation, XR, projection audio elements of the exhibition will extend into other parts of the library to encourage new audiences to explore collections and spaces in the broader library that they might not normally come in contact with (eg JOL, Family History, Stacks)

Online Exhibition

A bespoke online presence will be designed to complement the physical exhibition. It would incorporate elements from the interactive projection, audio recordings and other rich content, allowing the public unable to attend the physical exhibition to explore the conceptual space. If feasible this would be developed as part of a community engagement process and would evolve as the rest of the exhibition evolves.

Physical Publication

This is an (as yet) unfunded outcome for The Grumpus that would be wonderful.

It will collect the stories, artefacts and images from the project assembled into a coffee table publication, documenting the project for future reference. A limited number would be printed for… (reasons) and made available for digital download.

The focus with this is a prestige document that can be dined out on. Exploratorium in San Francisco has published an awesome couple of books and it would be an amazing capstone to the project; The Art of Curiocity and The Exploratorium Science Snackbook.

The Grumpus Podcast

There will be Podcasts unpacking The Grumpus. These Podcasts will be broken up into several series released over the course of the project with different audiences in mind. These series would range from production considerations) through showcasing the literary outcomes of the project (think an amazing, professional produced audio drama set in the world of The Grumpus with all the trimmings).

These podcasts would showcase the program to a wider audience and provide an audio record of the program. These would be developed and produced internally by State Library staff in collaboration with the community. How this work will be delivered and managed will be determined during the development of The Grumpus.

Conference Papers & Presentations

Across the life of The Grumpus a minimum of four conference papers and/or presentations will be delivered.

Project Documentation

Process

The Grumpus will be documented on the SLQ Wiki from a practitioner and outcome perspective. This documentation will outline the basis for the project evaluation and provide instructions to interested third parties on how to deliver the project. It will exemplify the logic underpinning the SLQ Wiki and serve as a template for delivering similar projects in the future.

Outcomes

Documentation expectations will be built into the delivery model, allowing staff the time to keep it up-to-date. Documentation formats will include written and photographic materials, video and audio recordings. Whatever serves the purpose best.

Delivery Materials

Specific to workshop and engagement activities, these will be documented for release as PDFs and instructional materials as the program progresses to the established communities of practise; GLAM, education and not-for-profit sector partners. This schedule of release will be decided on during the development phase of The Grumpus.

Project Evaluation

Several methodologies will be implemented to ensure a broad understanding of the program's delivery and impacts. These will culminate in a substantial evaluation of the report that will cover off on quantitative and qualitative metrics and impact of The Grumpus on the participating community and staff delivering the program

Session Checkouts

Each workshop and community engagement session will incorporate a standardised checkout process to be delivered by all staff and contractors. These checkouts will be geared towards collecting standardised qualitative data.

When applied correctly this methodology will allow participants to share their impressions and provide feedback without being asked to formally examine the process, which can taint the results and the community experience.

These sessions will be recorded and content folded into the Practise Notes process outlined below. Whether these recordings will be kept has yet to be identified.

Practise Notes

Staff and contractors will engage in a standardised practise notes process and the end of each engagement, collecting and documenting anonymised, qualitative data.

Aside from the anonymisation of data, this process is not uncommon and allows for tracking of trends in programming where multiple staff are involved. A suitable platform that complies with Queensland government privacy and data security guidelines will need to be identified.

Reflective Practise

At the end of each week of programming participating staff will engage in a reflective practise process, to collect their feedback, insights and support them in the delivery of the program. This will be led by Lead, Applied Creativity.

Culture Counts

A schedule of Culture Count surveys will be delivered to participants at the beginning - to establish a baseline of expectation with the community participants - and at the end of a given process to measure success and evolution.

Participants and Stakeholder Interviews

A schedule of one-on-one interviews with (volunteer) community participants and stakeholders to deeply unpack their experiences with The Grumpus project. Ideally specific subjects in the cohort would be identified at the beginning of the process and interviewed at intervals throughout the overarching process.

Onsite and Online Attendance Data

Standard collection of quantitative metrics will be applied to The Grumpus.

Conclusion

The Grumpus will be a large undertaking that will take up a large portion of the involved staff's time. The outcomes will be significant and the resultant framework could inform development of large scale community engagement into the future.

The use of low cost, sustainable materials and existing staff talents means that the project will be delivered for a (comparatively) modest budget.

If documented correctly it will provide a solid bank of stock imagery for future promotional use.

The Grumpus will establish State Library as a leader in large scale and responsibly delivered, community cultural development projects in Queensland and more broadly Australia.

By connecting participants back to other programs and resources on offer at State Library will help build membership and contextualise the role State Library plays in a diverse demographic of Queenslanders.

The Grumpus will provide multiple points where the community can enter into an exit from. It reflects a commitment to the broader wheel of engagement that underpins the State Library’s programming commitment.