Traders

DAE project team: David Hamers and Naomi Bueno de Mesquita.

TRADERS is the abbreviated title for the project Training Art and Design Researchers in Participation for Public Space.

This was a European FP7/Marie Curie Multi-ITN research project, bringing together different institutions for a wide, collaborative project.

Art and design research can contribute in interesting ways to the engagement of citizens, policymakers and private partners in public space (issues). However, the methods for achieving this and under-explored. The TRADERS project was

established to research ways in which art and design researchers can ‘trade' or exchange with multiple participants and disciplines in public space projects and - at the same time – trains them in doing so.

TRADERS focussed on developing and testing a methodological framework that could guide future artists and designers (or researchers and practitioners in other disciplines) to work in participatory and public space contexts.

Six (PhD) researchers in Belgium, the Netherlands, UK and Sweden tested and developed a part of this framework, depending on the expertise of the host institution. The research approaches/methods covered were:

• Intervention (LUCA School of the Arts and KU Leuven)

• Play (University of Gothenburg)

• Performative mapping (Design Academy Eindhoven)

• Data-mining (Royal College of Art)

• Modelling in dialogue (Chalmers University of Technology)

• Curating (KU Leuven)

At Design Academy Eindhoven, the research team from Places and Traces focussed on investigating a new method for mapping public space.

The TRADERS project ran from September 2013 until August 2017 and the training program had a duration of three years.

More information can be found on the TRADERS website.