Situated Design and False Creek Futures: Relationality, Engagement and Creativity in Eco-social Information Systems

Extractivist data collection through citizen science initiatives produces aggregate data that can provide useful insights for policy advocacy. However, these extractivist information systems do little to nurture locally engaged and creative eco-social geographies, support decolonization, or address crises of imagination. In response, this piece asks: What types of interactive information systems would support emplaced processes of relationality, engagement and creativity in urban shoreline ecosystems? How can design support interactive eco-social geographies as terrains for thinking, connecting and enacting? We address these questions through deeply situated work in an urban marine ecosystem called False Creek located in Vancouver, Canada. False Creek is a site of ecological remediation from industrialization and urbanization, and as part of Canada’s colonial occupation of unceded first nations territories, it is also a significant site of settler-indigenous reconciliation. This work delves into local history and contemporary relations to orient the production of community engaged design practices and artifacts that prioritize relationality, engagement and creativity. We critically assess our work to design appropriate information systems against the complex goals of enabling interactive, emplaced, enmeshed and reconciliatory eco-social systems.