ABSTRACT

Chapter 3 is titled “Designing Encounters.” It argues that the notion of designed encounters constitutes a key component of the open space documentary toolkit. Designed encounters invoke adaptability, fluidity, responsiveness, unpredictability, and multiple social agency. The chapter draws on the theories of radical theater critic and producer Augusto Boal’s concept of theater of the oppressed. Boal contends that theater draws people together for speculative engagements, asking the question, “What if?” Boal seeks to multiply the diversity of cultural producers through sensory dialogue and structured encounters. Extending Boal’s ideas, the chapter also discusses the social practice art theory of Grant Kester. Kester posits that social practice art is derived from collaborative, dialogical, generative encounters operating on a continuum of agency. For Kester, collaborative encounters generate new forms of knowledge through a continual renegotiation of difference. The chapter analyzes three projects that are designed to spur dialogue about contentious issues and that defuse simplistic binaries: Mapping Memories: Stories of Refugee Youth in Montreal, about refugees resettling in Canada; Lunch Love Community, about food justice, nutrition, and school lunches in Berkeley, California; and Ghana ThinkTank, which reverses the neocolonialist flow of ideas by asking those in the developing world to imagine solutions to problems in the developed world. Each project employs different strategies for designing encounters: Mapping Memories marshals individual storytelling, Lunch Love Community produces community-based encounters, and Ghana ThinkTank operates transnationally.