Stofan | Neutrality and Community Engagement

The collaborators in the experimental project Stofan | A Public Living Room gathered to brainstorm on ways to communicate and engage with people in public places. How do you engage with a new community or audience? The think tank began with imagining the needed support to embark on a new project, knowing that if you make mistakes someone will have your back and catch you when you fall. The participants then thought of the people they would like to engage with in their temporary versions of Stofan | A Public Living Room, knowing that they would have the needed support if this did not go as planned and the courage to approach new people. 

Neutrality was the topic of the second half of the session. What makes a place neutral? The library is often thought of as a neutral platform, but what are the elements that make it one? All the collaborators of Stofan mentioned that social spaces need to be used by diverse groups to count as neutral. You need to be able to see yourself within a space or at least people you identify with. Marginalized groups and minorities who are not already at the library, might never find out about the opportunities to use it for themselves if they haven´t been there already. The algorithms keep us appart and we need to break through those barriers and meet the people where they are and find ways to evaluate the experiences people make.

In all communication it needs to be easily understood that you can enter it with your abilities. It needs to be “normal” that you are in the place, and it is not an exception to the regular program that you are greeted for a single time. You need to be able to see that this can be your environment to make meaningful choices and exchanges for your community. For a place to count as neutral it needs to reflect the whole of society and that diverse and marginalized groups occupy it as well as those belonging to more dominant groups of the population.   

We hope that the diverse versions of the public living room will communicate this message of a future for a community square at the library. The next one opening is created by Juan Camilo: The Scent Library on the 12th of February 2024 – where we care for your senses and try to make sense through sensory experiences.  

Further information on the project Stofan | A Public Living Room 

Dögg Sigmarsdóttir 
Project Manager | Civic Participation 
dogg.sigmarsdottir@reykjavik.is