Museums as Catalysts for Change: Co-Designing Health, Care, and Community

In a time when museums face profound change and risk, co-design offers a powerful way to reimagine belonging, inclusivity, and adaptability. At Scotland’s design museum, V&A Dundee, design researchers and creative programmers are pioneering new approaches rethinking public spaces, shaping policy through design and creative practice, and building deep partnerships with local communities.

This presentation introduces a co-design methodology tested through two case studies that explore how cultural institutions can engage directly with urgent societal challenges. The first case, Design HOPES, employs a speculative design futures board game to spark dialogue and develop circular design ideas for the future of health and social care. By turning speculation into play, the project creates an accessible and engaging process to co-design potential pathways for systemic change.

The second case builds on this methodology by testing co-creation strategies in a public space imagined and shaped by participants with profound learning disabilities. Through non-verbal, sensory, tactile, and performative approaches, the group is co-designing Darren’s Studio a participatory museum space for interaction, expression, and belonging. This experiment expands the possibilities of curatorial practice, demonstrating how creativity can open inclusive spaces for voices often excluded from civic and cultural decision-making.

At the heart of both examples lies a flexible model for cultural institutions to act as civic connectors bringing together policy-makers, service organisations, and the public to strengthen lived experience and shared resources. In uncertain times, co-design provides museums with a renewed civic role as catalysts for collective hope, adaptability, and action.