Exhibition in a box

Building on Chamberlain’s ‘engagingaging’ project ‘engagingdesign’ is a transnational research platform that involves health academics, health practitioners and older people in the UK, Holland, Lithuania, Switzerland, Poland, Ireland, Portugal, Malta and Ireland. Developing the notion of the exhibition as a research tool and inspired by Duchamp’s ‘Boite en valise’ (Box in a suitcase) the exhibition is distilled into a ‘suitcase’ and aims to compare the experiences of older people across Europe to inform design in supporting independence and quality of life in later life. Rather than the onus being placed on older people to physically access traditional exhibition space, ‘exhibition in box’ seeks to bring the exhibition to the older person and to transform the home into the research arena providing individuals a tangible prompt to scaffold conversation. A set of principles has been developed and employed that primarily positions the older participants as the ‘expert’ and encourages choice and decision-making.