ART IN A BOX
Facilitating collaboration and connection through art during COVID
Overview
MY ROLE
Experience designer
Generative research, user journey mapping, stakeholder management, usability testing
TIMELINE & STATUS
September - November 2020
Experience facilitated - November 2020
IMPACT
Praised by 80+ students, teachers, and staff and continued a next iteration for the following year by the International School of Bangkok
SUMMARY
IASAS art cultural convention is an annual event where students from 6 high schools in Southeast Asia gather at the rotating host school to network with artists, explore cultural art practices, and host a collective art show.
As a part of the Taipei American school art department (the event host for 2020), I led end-to-end design strategy to adapt the experience into a virtual one - playing a key role in researching and testing ideas, delivering a comprehensive 5 part experience for 80+ participants.
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HIGHLIGHTS
A 48 hour challenge that promoted connection through a cultural art making challenge, facilitated team bonding, and coordinated activities across 6 schools
Collaborative art challenge
Opportunity to meet other students
Hourly team bonding prompt
Context
Adapting to pandemic induced constraints
Going virtual
Every year, art students in participating schools look forward to the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asia’s (IASAS) cultural convention. Selected students travel to one of the rotating 6 schools to meet other artists, explore cultural art practices, and represent their school in an art show.
In the fall of 2020, the event was set to be hosted at Taipei American School in Taiwan. However, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept through, travel restrictions made it impossible to physically host the event.
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THE CHALLENGE
How do you build connection through art and culture without physically connecting, while preserving the original experience?
Research
Analyzing the current experience
Semi-structured interviews
So what makes IASAS art,
IASAS art?
I Conducted 6 interviews representing students, alumni, faculty, and staff who have been a part of this in person event in the past
The team reviewed content of the events from previous years and communicated with national organization about event guidelines.
Given the depth of research and products in the field targeting behavior change and motivation, we used mixed methods to narrow down our scope.
✦ Learn about new culture
Experiencing another culture through its art and food expands artist’ visual vocabulary
✦ Make art friends in same school
An opportunity for art students to bond and become friends. In K-12 schools, students form friendships before they form interests so most art students are not friends outside of class.
✦ Connect with students from other schools
Connecting with artists from other schools and exchanging artistic processes inspires new ways of creating.
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IDEATION
How might we engage culture, bonding, and personal connection in a novel experience?
Design
A 5 part art experience
⋇ Part 1
48 hour collaborative art making challenge with local Taiwanese art materials where students discuss and create 1 art piece together that fits the theme
Rational: the experience would be held over the weekend so students did not need to skip classes
⋇ Part 2
Hourly team bonding prompts with an option to share on social media. This includes cultural experiences like snacks and drinks
Rational: creating a team atmosphere and propts that facilitate groups to get to know one another
⋇ Part 3
Virtual gift exchange between artists from different schools. Students will pair up with a student from a different school to interview them and create a unique artwork for them
Rational: This allows students to get to know another student more initmatley and use their artistic skills to create something memorable for each other.
⋇ Part 4
Virtual art gallery with photos of artwork from students at each school
Rational: the virtual art gallery is a way for students to share their schools work and see what other school's art departments are working on
⋇ Part 5
Online video meeting to share out completed challenge artwork
Rational: This is a way to showcase every team's final collaborative art piece, conclude the experience, and receive feedback for future iterations of the experience
User Journey Map
Art delegates are selected by each school to be a part of this experience
Artwork is selected by each school to be a part of the ‘gallery and brochure’
delegates arrive at the start of the 48 hr challenge
each hour they open a new prompt
Testing
Streamlining the experience
Testing with our teachers and students
With our key insights, target audience, and vision in mind, we devised 3 goals to guide our exploration
⊙ Visual inconsistency
Visual language needs to be more consistent across various components
≚ Confusing Wording
Wording in the instruction manual can be confusing and color contrast not enough
⋇ Potential challenges
Must be cognizant of food related constraints like shipping regulations and food allergies
Simple visual design system
I designed the branding for this event and implemented a fresh take on primary colors for the theme. I also selected iconography to match each part of the experience and tied it together with typography.
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! ADDED CONSTRAINT !
1 week before we needed to ship the boxes,
2 schools went into lockdown and will not be able to meet.
How do we adapt experience for students in isolation?
1 big box = 12 small boxes
The big box will be shipped to the school and the teacher of the school will ship the individual boxes to their students
We modifyied the instructions and experience to be able to be done individually
Delivery
Final experience
Signed, Sealed, Delivered!
We delivered 4 boxes to schools who were able to complete the challenge together and 2 boxes of 12 individually packed boxes to schools in lockdown.
Unexpectedly, immigration at one of the countries had to open the box to check the contents, but we were informed by the teacher of the school that they were able to put it back together for the students to experience.
Welcome to Iasas Art in a Box
Students across the 6 schools started at the challenge at the same time by openeing the box and following the instructions for the 48 hours
Part 1:
Collaborative art challenge
Each team gets the same materials, locally sourced from Taipei. Each team is challenged to collaboratively make one artwork within the them:
"In these______times"
Part 2:
Bonding prompts
Each hour, teams must open a 'prompt' envelope that has a mini activity for the team to complete together. They range from making a playlist, to enjoying Taiwanese snacks and tea.
Part 3:
Art of Giving
Each student was paired up with a student from a different school. Each student filled out an 'about me' slide and for homework, they had the option to use the information on the slide or connect with their pair online to learn more about them. The goal was to create a custom art piece for each other that should take a few hours.
At the end of the whole experience, students were given a pin for successfully participating in the event.
Part 4:
Virtual Gallery
Because we were short on time, we put all the student artwork in a slideshow for students to 'walk through
If we had more time, we wanted to put together a website for students to browse the work and for the work to have a permanent home. This is a larger project as it would eventually house the artwork from every year moving forward.
Part 5:
Final video meeting!
Because we were short on time, we put all the student artwork in a slideshow for students to 'walk through
If we had more time, we wanted to put together a website for students to browse the work and for the work to have a permanent home. This is a larger project as it would eventually house the artwork from every year moving forward.
Delivery
How did it go?
Completed artworks
Each school tackled the challenge differently, with the same materials. Even the school with students learning from home found ways to combine their individual artworks into one. Some pieces celebrated their own culture (Singapore American School) while others celebrated Taiwanese culture (International School of)
Taipei American School
International School
Internatinal School
Singapore American aschool
International School
International school
The experience had a big impact on students - especially those in lockdown
“Even though we couldn’t travel this year, the creativity and effort that you and the team put in made this IASAS experience extremely fun and better than we could have ever imagined.”
"Being under lockdown, this was an outlet for me to express my feelings through art and feel connected to my community. Thank you."
Reflection
Setting the tone for next year
What’s next for IASAS art?
This experience set the stage for the following year's IASAS hosted by International School of Bangkok. They took this idea and infused even more interactive components such as virtual workshops with local Thai artisans, and interviews with IASAS art alumni..
Project Takeaways
Adaptability is an important skill
Especially because we were designing an experience during the pandemic, when regulations are changing all the time, giving users the autonomy to adapt the product to their needs is crucial
Passion for the project is infectuous
I initially volunteered for this project because no one else on the team wanted to handle it. But the more I conducted research and realized the impact this event had on people, I became very passionate about building a solution. Others then joined me along the way because they started to see the purpose.
