Exercises in Co-Authorship
Stelo Arts
Hosted during exhibition, I Know This Place by Heart
Portland, Oregon, 2025
Purpose: To replicate the felt experience of the working relationship between myself and Karina Rovira. This program was inspired by and hosted inside of our collaborative work. We invited siloed creatives to soften their relationship with ownership and decision making to co-author written outcomes that they would not have been able to envision alone. The intent was for participants walk away with insight in how the mechanics of their relationships with others impact what is possible to create together and how to safely asses and deepen collaboration through risk taking.
Approach: Participants were given a series of exercises to generate, rearrange, and remove language in pairs, using the artwork on view as a jumping off point. Through facilitated dialogue and writing, they formed shared understanding and collaborative prose. Pairs developed language to articulate their joint voice by sharing their unique process with other pairs and journaling to a series of reflection questions.
