Radiococo Broadcast #31
me and we
Today was the graduation ceremony in the design department at my university. It marks exactly one year to my graduation and the end of the first year of my masters program in child culture design (🥹)
Just last week, we officially opened Wandering Objects, our play sculpture in Kiruna. We welcomed the young explorers we have been working with and showed them how they have influenced our design decisions.
It was 10 days of early mornings, heavy lifting, occasional snow, and brutal winds in the giant, dusty construction city that is Kiruna. It still feels surreal that we were able to achieve everything that we set out to do. It was a crazy, ambitious project from the start. Even though there were 5 of us in a team, none of us really had any outdoor building experience, and there we were, trying to build 3! massive sculptures that were climbable and able to withstand the weight of children stomping, screaming, and swinging.
Before we returned to Kiruna for the build phase, we were prepared to massively downsize our ambitions because of the many unknowns– will the ground still be frozen? Were we legally allowed to dig on-site? Will we have to shovel snow?! We agreed that we would be content if we could just get 1 sculpture up. Shoot for the moon, fall amongst the stars sort of vibe. But we nailed every single damn thing we set out to do.
I often feel like I have been magically blessed by phenomenal teamwork dynamics all my adult life (shoutout to SaturdayKids and Superhero Me gang 💕), but as I write this, I know that it isn’t just a work of fate. It takes equal amounts of hard work and curiosity on everyone’s part. One of the defining moments for our team dynamic was a workshop we had during the early days of this project; it was about working as a team (cheesy, I know, but incredible foresight from our teachers). We talked about how we worked based on this framework:
It turned out that all of us leaned towards the ‘me’ half, especially in the ideation phase. I felt very seen when my teacher said that some people just don’t brainstorm well in a team. Some people need their quiet corner to think and return to the team afterwards. It seemed obvious now, but I had always, up until that point, felt that I just wasn’t creative enough to ideate in a group. I was learning how different ways of working could complement each other. I wasn’t sure how and was a bit sceptical at the start. My teammates showed me that (once again) you don’t figure it out alone. We were transparent about how we worked–A warned us that she could get very bossy and needed control, M was clear about how much she might have to be absent because of work and mothering, L’s intuitive and dreamy nature pulled us out of merry-go-round-going-nowhere discussions and B showed us that his ADHD brain didn’t comprehend abstractness like us, but in making things concrete, we got the clarity we needed in critical points of the project. We knew how we worked individually but were open to trying each other’s methods, even if we were sure it wouldn’t work for us. Trying and being curious about it was key.
We started every meeting with a round of check-ins (with the option to skip if you really didn’t want to for whatever reason), and even as we moved to the building site, we started each early morning with a warm-up (very japanese rajio taiso vibe). Waking up our minds and bodies and being silly together. Working with different personalities, moods and idiosyncracies, having consistencies like this kept us grounded and open to try and to learn. Co-designing with the children and youth was incredible, but what was truly invaluable for me in this experience was that we accomplished what we aimed for as a team without losing our sanity or compassion + respect for one another.
There’s more to say about the project itself, the responses, the details, the build, etc., but I will leave that to another broadcast. For now, I am starting my summer break by appreciating the 10pm sunset.
Thank you for being here; enjoy the sunset today!
This month’s play-list:
My summer deep dive will be on this site
Another movie recco site
I love sites for practising typing!