Project :: Community Engagement in Rural China

Community Engagement in Rural China

A collaboration between Queen Mary University of London and Hunan University, Changsha, China, with the Kam ethnic minority, China and the New Channel DESIS project. Over 13 days in rural China we built a Maker space in the village of Hengling, China, and co-created an interactive drama and interactive art exhibition which was attended by over 300 local people.

In 2015 we explored the novel use of interactive drama to engage a local community in short-term cross-cultural co-creation with the goal of building the core characteristics of a local but better community with the Kam minority in Hengling village. The results from the participatory process and participants’ feedback are promising, with clear indicators of community engagement and knowledge sharing beyond the design process itself. The lessons learnt and approaches developed provide a starting point for increasing community engagement with social design practices and research across different societies. An interactive performance and exhibition was created with villagers in Hengling Village, Tongdao County, Hunan Province with locally-sourced found objects and materials.

Winner of the QM #EEAwards15 @EngageQM 2015 public engagement award

People

QMUL, Dr. Nick Bryan-Kinns
Hunan University, China, Dr. Wei Wang
Hunan University, China, Prof. Ji Tie

Research Areas

Creative Engagement
Cross-Cultural
User Experience
Making
Evaluation
NIME
HCI