Second Stories — A method kit for circularity-focused Co-Creation
by Ece Günesen, Johannes Rothkegel & Tianqi Xiong
For the past few weeks, we have been investigating the significance of the second hand shopping experience in Umeå through a co-creative lens as part of our course ‘Communication for Co-creation’. Following an initial hunch that objects are our companions that navigate through life alongside us and accompany us through some important milestones in our lives, we sought ways to strengthen our connection and awareness of our belongings in a rapidly evolving material culture that focuses more and more on the individual as opposed to the community.
Our inspiration stemmed from our unique circumstances; Umeå, a student city in northern Sweden, sees a constant influx of young students and researchers while a stable local population is able to grow roots. As new groups arrive, departing students leave behind cherished objects and furniture for the next wave of inhabitants. This cycle represents just one example of the transitions we observed between people and their belongings. Excited by the societal aspect of circular consumption, we were eager to start experimenting.
Here is a documentation of our adventures in co-creation in a toolkit format:
You can view and download it here: https://tome.app/secondstories/co-creation-kit-cltu5vzyu0hsuob60c6v0xtg7
How did we end up here?
We began our process by defining our intentions in the form of a statement and then visiting the physical spaces of the services we intended to work with, such as the second-hand store. This helped us understand the physical and social constraints of our location and its touchpoints, as well as the daily experiences of the people who frequent these second hand stores in Umeå.
We made use of autoetnography and contextual interviews to gain insights for the upcoming steps.
Following the Thing
We’ve conducted over four interviews and crafted journey maps based on participants’ narratives about their experiences and impressions of local second-hand stores in Umeå. They shared their favorite finds, motivations, and how their lifestyles intertwine with their relationships with objects. The ‘fruits’ of our labor yielded us with many interesting anectodes, insights and object stories🍓
Here’s an outcome example of us following the method — an object story guided by us following the thing:
Simulating the Service
Building on the insights yielded from our research, we went on to create a barebones version of our service space on school grounds with the intention to use it as a stage for design prototyping activities later. Along with the physical stage, we’ve also devised and recreated a digital service ‘stage’ in the form of a social media account, belonging to this second hand store.
Every participant received a prompt about their role and personality that they would take on in this space for the next 45 minutes. These roles included social media manager, cashier, or a bargain-hunter.
Cross-pollinating Ideas
Following a framework of past, present and future; we have concluded our co-creation session with a round of idea generation. We’ve provided each of our participants with two random Umeå establishments such as the museum or the tattoo parlor, and assured everyone that all ideas are welcome, both wild and tame. We sat together at a circle and had 1 minute for each collaboration card, where you try to cross-breed a new idea between the second hand store and the new potential collaborator. After the time runs out, you simply give your cards to the neighboring person and receive new ones from your other neighbor.
Later, we’ve asked the table to decide on selecting some ideas that they deem worthy of being on the whiteboard. By the end of the session, the participants had created a collective mind map illustrating networks and clusters formed by the multitude of ideas generated on paper. It was important that these ideas were curated and ranked by the participants to be mapped together to represent what is most significant to them.
Numerous partnership opportunities emerged that had previously been overlooked, and we were able to discuss and explore some new territory by imagining the potential intersections.
For instance, envisioning a crossover between the museum experience and the second-hand store led to an intriguing concept: in thisspeculative scenario, objects could be donated along with a letter detailing their history from the previous owner. We wondered if this could then transform the act of navigating the store into an exploration of interconnected stories and lives, fostering deeper connections within the network of inhabitants guided by the context of our pre-loved objects.
