Educational output
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Collaboration with Alfa College, Groningen
Students from the Alfa College (Groningen) worked on creating digital games as part of a toolkit to create awareness of the experiences of people with disabilities.
Using insights from the everyday experiences of our wheelchair co-researchers, the students developed different computer games; some intended to raise awareness of what it is like to have a disability, some intended to enable play as hero in a wheelchair. It was a lot of fun seeing how these students engaged with the task. Some students taught themselves the skills needed to create functions in the game they wanted, others did a little fieldwork to figure out how disability could affect their shopping experience.
This was done under supervision of Bettina van Hoven and Julia Munuera Garcia, in collaboration with Alfa College lecturers Delfo Pinto and Raymond Versteijnen.
Link to the games will follow.
Alfa College 'A Steampunk Story'
Students Kai Nijland and Sandra Staats from the Alfa College (Groningen) worked on creating character designs and game art for a prototype board game to create awareness of the experiences of people with disabilities as well as mainstream characters with a disability as heroes in games.
This is a collaborative game where our wheelchairs co-researchers become playable characters in a Steampunk world. Each character has unique talents to bring to this game, and together they have to face challenges to make their city more accessible. The game takes inspiration from many existing games played within our team throughout the development phase like ‘the Lost City’, and the ‘Battle of Hogwarts’ in that the city comprises a board of different locations revealed during the game, and the characters can acquire a variety of helpful tools. An earlier prototype that provided inspiration was developed by UCG students in the context of their project work.
Sandra and Kai developed some amazing prototype characters and locations sketches which will soon be used to finalise this game.
The project was supervised by Bettina van Hoven and Julia Munuera Garcia, in collaboration with Alfa College lecturer/Buro Bouma coach Delfo Pinto.
UCG Project Year 2 'This Abled City'
University College Groningen welcomed a student group and their supervisors Franziska Kutzick and Sophie Witt from the Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Hamburg. These students work together with year 2 UCG students on a project exploring accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities in the city. In their project, they will create ‘Deep Maps’ and connect the cities through thematic ‘wormholes’.
The weekend also provided space for an amazing and inspirational reunion of various former and current students and (co-)researchers who worked with us on the NWO project ‘Everyday Geographies of Being and Becoming Disabled’ (and its predecessor projects). Madelief Fisher presented the co-creation of a smartphone based app for data collection in the city by wheelchair users. Kate Lehane discussed small stories from our go-along GoPro data collection. Julia Munuera Garcia shared updates from co-creating a cooperative board game set in a steampunk world (also involving Alfa-College). Julia Doornbos gave us a glimpse of a book and exhibition showcasing creative work from student teams collated in the past years. Jon Rees Revilla and Merel Wiesenekker showed us their ideas for ‘cinematic video vignettes’ exploring experiences of wheelchair users in the city. Jeroen van Balkom and Tessa Meijer shared their experiences as wheelchair co-researchers.
UCG Project Year 1 'This Abled City'
The heart of the Liberal Arts and Sciences programme at University College Groningen is the Projects learning line, which allows students to discover, apply, and integrate knowledge and understanding from diverse disciplinary domains to address complex societal problems. It has a strong focus on innovation and synthesizing existing knowledge in new ways using creativity and imagination.
In the experiential project ‘This Abled City’, students first explore different models of ‘knowing’ disability, i.e. a medical model, a social model and an embodied model. This includes a visit to the Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, experiencing impairments in a sensory change lab and connecting with people with disabilities. Students explore spaces, places and practices that cause people to ‘become’ disabled. In smaller groups, students then work on developing ways of changing representations and creating awareness and to share knowledge in creative, affective and impactful ways.
An impression of the project, under supervision of Bettina van Hoven, Nena Lejko and Julia Munuera Garcia.
Geographies of Diversity and Inclusion (in the Urban Context)
This project addresses how social and physical features of urban spaces lead to experiences of in- and exclusion for marginalized groups, and how this affects the everyday lives of such groups. A key aim is to work with these marginalized groups on a dissemination strategy. The project originated already in research preceding 2015 but this year is significant as the collaboration with Noorderbrug/'s Heeren Loo and art academy Minerva begun. In these projects, dissemination is achieved through interactive exhibitions based on photography and in the form of a pop up museum. Public dissemination activities include various exhibitions at Academy Minerva and Noorderbrug. The project also featured in the local newspapers as well as a Unifocus video report on the University of Groningen website (see below). Highlights were pop up exhibitions at the University College in Rotterdam, the Irish Geographers conference in Maynooth and the Royal Geographical Society in London.
An impression of the collaborations between co-researchers from 's Heeren Loo, students of Minerva and students of University of Groningen (2015-2018), under supervision of Bettina van Hoven and Andrea Stultiens.
University of Groningen - Unifocus (March 9, 2016)
Op ontdekkingsreis door elkaars leefwerelden
A short clip of one of the collaborations between co-researchers from 's Heeren Loo, students of Minerva and students of University of Groningen (Break Out, 2015-2016).
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