Ett skepp kommer lastat. . . [A ship comes loaded. . .] : a Swedish children’s game in which players recount, in accumulated succession, the imagined contents of an incoming ship. The metaphorical abundance and unknowability of the latter drove this cross-institutional, multi-disciplinary collaboration and PhD research case study which engaged with the Frölunda Kulturhus’s theme of ‘neighbors’. A constellation of twelve participatory workshops with children explored indirect dialogues between neighbors via architectural interfaces and perspectival reversals of researcher and subject. The project led to a three-week exhibition in the Frölunda Kulturhus’s main exhibition hall and involved over 165 children and youth from three different schools.

Keywords: hybrid designs, hybrid artworks, participatory workshops, explorative workshops, workshops with children, participatory exhibition, artistic research, indirect dialogues, multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, cross-institutional, multivocal project, poetic frames, neighbors, strangers

The project was a unique cross-institutional, multi-disciplinary collaboration between Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Architecture, Frölunda Culture House, The City of Gothenburg Cultural Department, Frölunda School, Önnered School, The International School of the Gothenburg Region (ISGR) and the EU-financed research project TRADERS (training art and design researchers in participation in/for public space). The exhibition featured a variety of hybrid artworks, made by both children and youth and myself. They were displayed orbiting around a participatory sculptural installation which embodied the project’s multiple metaphors: ships, apartments, spaceships, expeditions, laboratories.