Collective Wisdom Symposium panel, “Swarm. The dangers and risks of co-creation”. Moderated by Ethan Zuckerman. Featuring Sasha Costanza-Chock, Yasmin Elayat, Grace Lee, Amelia Winger-Bearskin.
The term ‘co-creation’ can be controversial. On one hand, for many auteur artists, journalists, professionals, and decision-makers, the notion of co-creation can threaten the authority and the rigour of systems that rely on individuals’ established talent and expertise. They also worry that “co-creation” dilutes ideas to the lowest common denominator. Meanwhile, vulnerable communities, movements and people who have been historically excluded from participating meaningfully in professional media-making, express concern that the term “co- creation” is simply a smokescreen for continuing extractive and exploitative practices, only under a new term. But the language of co-creation also has a long history of dening a constellation of collective practices that holds partners accountable to each other and produces a whole greater than the sum of its parts. In this panel, long-time co-creators discuss the risks and dangers of the term, and debate the ways in which we can mitigate them to ethically arrive at that larger whole.
This panel discussion was part of the Collective Wisdom Symposium, a three-day multi-disciplinary symposium organized by the Co-Creation Studio at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, in partnership with the Ford Foundation’s Just Films, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Phi Centre. September 20-22, 2018.