Creative Brief - Community design, prototype and fabrication sprint- Saturday Open Lab Crew

Keen to get your feedback. As per usual just add your comments as a wrap with your initials. Mick

The Saturday Arvo Crew is just one group of people that will be participating in a discrete component of the wider 2021 GRUMPUS Project.

So what is the Grumpus project?.. And how does our little piece of it fit in?

The following brief gives an overview of the wider GRUMPUS project, its goals and objectives. It also details the specific goals and objectives, tasks and milestones of this specific crew.

Having this information spelt out is a process that professional creatives use to make their work effective and efficient. So its good experience for anyone who might choose to go on and do this professionally. It also ensures that we have a clear purpose, can prioritise and have framework to facilitate good communication and collaborative decision making.

Overview of the 2021 GRUMPUS project

The GRUMPUS is a fifteen-month community engagement project that’s happening at the State Library of Queensland in 2021-22. The project will culminate in The Great and Grand Rumpus exhibition of beautiful sculptural, digital and immersive installation that captures a sense of play and whimsy in the SLQ Gallery Level 2, opening in December 2021 and open through July 2022. A bespoke and interactive online presence will be developed in collaboration with State Library participants and public libraries.

The project origins lie in the limitless imaginations of children. Children from around Brisbane are being encouraged to exercise and expand their imaginations, and in doing to dream up and catalogue a collection of the most fantastic, astonishing and magical things you could expect to see in the Great and Grand Rumpus - a make-believe place that will spill from the SLQ Gallery at State Library for time of the exhibition. The ideas (which we call Things) will be teased out of the children's imaginations with skilful encouragement from a team of professional artworkers, and will be collected, catalogued and placed into The Well, a digital repository of things on the SLQ Wiki.

From here a community of Makers, Volunteers and creative industries, arts and design students are being invited to bring these things to life as a series of giant sculptural and interactive installations. There are a range of in demand skills and experience that participants these adult participants can gain through the project that will assist these people in developing a career A focus will be placed on making use of sustainable materials and practise. A majority of the exhibition will be built from recyclable materials and the process focuses on building community capacity through the development of new skills and documenting the process as a resource so regional libraries and other interested organisations can replicate parts of the work in their own communities.

Throughout the process a conscious effort will be made to respectfully capture and document the diverse voices of the communities engaged in the program. The Grumpus 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 practices when working with children where children are taught how to think by adults. The engagement is intergenerational and focuses on building strong communities of practise through community arts and technology engagement frameworks.

The project will not finish when the exhibition opens, Designs will continue iterating over time as children playtest the installations. Ongoing public programming throughout the exhibition will further activate and embellish the exhibition with new content to be installed in the exhibition, providing opportunity for return visitation as the exhibition evolves. During the development and delivery of the exhibition, there is opportunity to expand the exhibition to other spaces across State Library. The exhibition will integrate with exiting State Library program offerings such as Summer Festival.

GRUMPUS Target audience

Children, young people, their families and the young at heart	>	Participants in Well Making Workshops, the online and on-site exhibition and activation program.
Primary schools and community development organisations working with people from diverse backgrounds	>	Participants in Well Making Workshops, the online and on-site exhibition and activation program.
Anyone who wants to explore collaborative making. Especially those who want to gain experience utilising community arts and technology engagement frameworks.	>	participants in Design prototype and fabrication process, the online and on-site exhibition, activation program and via SLQ wiki.

Key messages & takeaways from the GRUMPUS project.

Key messages describe message and or sense we want people to get from interacting with our projects. It's useful to also know what we want these people to do as a “call to action”

“Creativity and imagination are like a muscles… the more you use them, the stronger they will get”
The library is a great place for people of all ages to exercise this muscle.

Join our mailing list today

“Ideas are great but actual getting involved and making something can change the world”
The library has resources and people to help you get started making.

Check out our resources on plan my visit.

“Connecting with people who share your interests is great fun”
Attending in a library talk, workshop or meetup is a great way to connect with your community. Check out the range of programs on our Whats on page.

“Don’t be scared of failing at something new… the worst you can do is fail to start”
Checkout how you can get involved and come along with a friend

Barriers to Engagement

Usually in a brief, this is where the competitors and point of difference are identified. In this case we will give an overview of barriers to engagement and how we will seek to address these barriers

Barriers to engagement	What People Say	how we want to address these barriers
1. A lack of awareness about the resources available at State Library of Queensland.	“What a great resource! I never knew...”	Work with State Library’s marketing team promote the project and showcase our resources.
2. Peoples’ lack of confidence in expressing themselves creatively or trying something new.	“I'm not a creative person”	Explain that participating in the project will build peoples skills and confidence and that experience maker will be here to assist
3. A lack of motivation (procrastination, apathy, value proposition, perceived cost) or	“I never seem to have the time”	Show people how much fun it is and what you can go home with.
Attract people by documenting the process- making it visible
Attract people by promoting the idea of contributing to Qld's Memory
4. Administrative friction, perceived, and actual difficulty involved in participating (“it's too hard to book-in, find information on your website, check-in when I arrive.”).	“I'm so confused... I can never seem to book”	Make it as easy as possible to participate and focus communicate clearly on how you can connect

Organisational Background

Founded in 1896, State Library of Queensland is the leading reference and research library in Queensland. State Library is responsible for collecting and preserving a comprehensive collection of Queensland’s cultural and documentary heritage, providing free access to information for all Queenslanders and for the advancement of public libraries across the State. State Library captures and preserves Queensland’s documentary culture and heritage ensuring that the diverse stories of Queensland are captured for future generations.

State Library plays a lead role in serving all Queenslanders, through state-wide library services and partnerships with more than 320 vibrant public libraries and Indigenous Knowledge Centres in Queensland.

State Library also create events and exhibitions for, by and with our communities, inviting engagement with our collections and services, and fostering connections between individuals and groups. State Library also supports specific communities of interest: Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders (kuril dhagun), design (Asia Pacific Design Library), the literary community (Reading and Writing) and The Edge. The Edge is State Library's space for creativity, ideas and experimentation and the Applied Creativity (AC) is the team at the State Library of Queensland that manages & coordinates a range of programs and public facilities at The Edge. Applied Creativity seeks to empower creative experimentation in the fields of arts, science and technology. It manages the SLQ Wiki, an online working knowledge base developed to reflect State Library's commitment sharing best practice in this growing area of activity, and it regularly coordinates large scale community engagement projects like the Great and Grand Rumpus. You can check out Applied Creativity’s previous community engagement work (including the 2018 Great and Grand Rumpus) on the State Library website here and the SLQ Wiki here.

Key features of the 2021-22 Great and Grand Rumpus

The latest Great and Grand Rumpus will be even bigger and better than the last one! The Grumpus will be in a larger space with bigger sculptures and will involve even more people from the community - dreaming up and making an amazing space for imagination and play.

The Grumpus project can be broken down in 4 main parts:

Stage 1. Filling the Well - The Project kicked off in May with Well Making workshops in primary schools around Brisbane. In Well Making workshops arts workers and with children develop creative concepts for use in the Grumpus workshops. As part of this workshop process, each young creator will be engaged to produce a description, in their own words, of the story behind their artefact, and give context and narrative richness to accompany their creation. These creator's stories are being captured using digital text (either contributed directly, or scribed for them) and short verbal responses captured as a digital recording. This information. (scrubbed of personal identifiers), will provide the content of a page of unique digital content, linked by QR code to any physical product present in the exhibition.

Stage 2. Designing & Prototyping Installations

Stage 3. Fabrication and Install

Stage 4. Exhibit, activate and reiterate Document and learn from the process.

Goals and objectives of the greater GRUMPUS project.

The goal of Great and Grand Rumpus is to empower the creative expression of children and explore how that creative expression can be used to stimulate and inform creativity and lifelong learning in adults. It sees the creative practise of the community highlighted in State Library spaces and encourages active engagement and public ownership of these spaces.

The central objectives of the project are to provide:

1. Fun opportunities for children, young people and their families to engage with activities that develop literacies and connection with community and that celebrate their creativity.

2. Meaningfully opportunities for student and community makers / designers to actively engage with State Library via a significant community arts project.

3. Practical, hands-on opportunities for student creatives to develop in-demand industry skills and experience.

4. Accessible opportunities for community makers from a range of backgrounds to develop skills and the confidence contemporary digital storytelling, design, and fabrication.

5. opportunities for contemporary children and their families, as well as community makers and student creatives to engage with and contribute to the state’s heritage and cultural memory.

6. Provides an opportunity for Queensland practitioners develop and document a best practice approach to engaging community and place making that can be rolled out in Libraries and other cultural organisations.

Project timeline

May

• Well making workshops conducted in primary schools around the greater Brisbane area.

July

• Design, prototyping and fabrication processes with community makers (Saturday Arvo Crew), secondary schools (BSH & BSSSC) and university student cohorts (QUT CI 3rd year students and Griffith 1st year Art and Design students). • Well making workshops at the Murry school and QPASTT

September

• 1st collection of installations complete • Collaborative Exhibition curatorial process commences. • Crews commence design of 2nd Design, Prototype and Fabrication Process

November

• 2nd collection of installations complete • Exhibition installed • Install wrap parties and Media and VIP preview

December

• Exhibition opens • Exhibition opening activities and activation activities commence (including extensive playtesting)

February

• Activation activities continue • Playtesting learnings compiled

April

• Design reiterations based on playtest learnings

Who is the Saturday Arvo Crew?

The Saturday Arvo Crew Is anyone from the community who wants to get involved in the Grumpus project. You just need to be eligible* to use the Fabrication Lab and agree to its term and conditions. * anyone over the age of 16 (or 12-16 year olds supervised by a responsible adult). What are Specific goals and objectives of the Saturday Arvo Crew ? The goals and objectives for this crew are:

Fun and problem solving

1. We want people to have Fun and rediscover the joy of creative play

2. Some people get a buzz out of creative problem solving

Make great art

3. We want to create a visually dynamic and interactive sculptural installation that:

1 Respectfully responds and builds on the ideas of the children that have contributed to the Well,

2. Addresses the literacy, cognitive and social development needs of children.

3. Captures the diverse voices of the people engaged in the project.

4. Is built out of reusable, recyclable and easily accessible (off the shelf) materials– primarily cardboard and hotglue.

5. Safe

6. Explores the use the digital media and fabrication tools available at The Edge

7. But also considers fabrication methods that don’t require specialist equipment available at the Edge.

8. Connect and compliment the other installations that are being built by other groups.

Objectives for individuals

4. We want people to develop skills and experience and become confident in their ability to express their creativity and make things for themselves.

5. We want everyone to meet new people and possibly even find their tribe.

How we want to work

6. We want to work collaboratively and for participants to be able engage in all aspects of the design, prototype and fabrication of installation and to be able to move in and out of project when they need to Documentation 7. We want everyone who worked on the project to be involved in the documentation of this process so we can capture what we learn as we progress, and make this available other people who might want to replicate this process in their own communities. Advocacy 8. We want participants to help us promote Libraries as an important public resource and a space for collect and explore our cultural memory and a place creating community and making the future.

Discreet Tasks and Deliverables

Design, Prototype and Fabricate

Drawing for concepts contributed to The Well, and informed by the goals and objectives above, design, prototype and fabricate one of the nine installations that will form the core exhibition. We aim to have a first one done and ready to install by the end of September.

Documentation

The Saturday Arvo Crew will document our process and learnings as we go, we aim to make written records and capture images of our process and what we make every session and will make video or audio recordings of relevant highlights as we go.

Social Media

The Saturday Arvo Crew will have the opportunities contribute/pitch stories/content for the libraries official channels and might want to share the fun we are having through their networks.

How we want to communicate

MS Teams

We don’t want progress to stop just because our formal session is over. Technology allows us to collaborate in-between sessions

Open and honest but always respectful

How we’ll document our process and learnings

SLQ wiki

End of session form and uploading media

Creative Decision making process

Any important decisions we’ll discuss as a group using the principles outlined goals and objectives to identify priorities.

At the end of the day if we are struggling to build a clear consensus, the project manager, Daniel Flood, will step in and make a decision considering what's best for the community, the long-term strategic goals of the library and what's best for the project

Things you need to know about making at the State Library of Queensland

Fabrication Lab

Participants need to abide by Fabrication Lab Safety System, Fabrication Lab terms of use at all times. Participants wishing to continue on with their work in the fabrication lab outside of our dedicated sessions will need to complete relevant General and facility inductions

State Library Policies and Procedures

Patron responsible conduct policy,

COVID policy and procedures

Intellectual property rights and the SLQ Wiki

• the implications for individuals contributing ip to a community project and or the SLQwiki

State Library intellectual freedom policies and appropriate community standards

How the library will reserve the right to decide what are appropriate community standards for a SLQ community led exhibition.

Who to contact if you want specific information or you have a problem.