An invitation to co-creation

In the Soundings exhibition curatorial score, Hopkins and Robinson ask: “How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization?

As a potential partner and collaborator with The Score Research Cluster, we ask you to consider this idea through the avenue of research-creation: What decolonial actions might emerge through creative collaboration?

How will The Score Research Cluster model ways of thinking and acting differently in relation to place?

Through collaborative projects and avenues of research-creation, The Score aims to enrich and interrogate UBC’s cultural institutions and strengthen relationships across UBC campuses, Musqueam territory and international borders.

Consider this invitation as a score to guide conversations between collaborators, to develop the terms of partnership in mutual relation and to circumvent colonial structures and power relations. The Score will hold space for creative ways of thinking and doing that model potential decolonial relationships, and in turn, that bring new research-creation processes and forms of knowledge into being.

The Score Research Custer:

• anticipates research-creation activities such as exhibitions, mentorships, workshops, seminars and symposia
• works with community-engaged and participatory research values to mutually create shared intentions and avenues for each project with collaborators and partners
• uses consensus-based decision making and is responsive to other approaches practiced by partners as relevant to each project
• jointly establishes forms of accountability and autonomy for all participants
• shares appropriate knowledge, resources, technical and infrastructure support where required
• cultivates mutually beneficial partnerships and outcomes for all involved.

The Score leadership-team members will work with partners and collaborators on a project-by-project basis to create jointly defined frameworks. This approach requires that all project leaders articulate shared goals that prioritize reciprocal benefits, needs and interests. Establishing a mutual sense of trust through this consensus-based approach is integral to The Score’s purpose as a research-creation cluster. The organizational framework brings together a wide range of creative partners, scoring avenues of research-creation and bringing them into tangible manifestations.