Abstract
How can engagement practices remain open to new dialogues, issues and possibilities beyond existing hierarchies and often exploitative conditions? The acts of co-curation are investigated as a mode of community engagement, focusing on the Cambridge Room, an experimental urban room (UR) in Cambridge, UK. By examining three projects in one of the UK’s most unequal cities, this paper reflects on the forms and dynamics of community engagement and knowledge co-creation in URs, often seen as an alternative version to urban living labs. Drawing on emerging theories of care and civic empowerment within curatorial practices, this paper argues that co-curation in urban contexts functions as a practice of enabling, educating, critiquing and making public, reinforcing the civic dimension of participatory engagement. The Cambridge Room case study demonstrates how through co-curation URs can facilitate community-led initiatives, foster resource sharing and enhance collaboration across diverse demographic groups as multiple agents of care. At the same time, the case study reveals that co-curation faces critical challenges: building trust amid conflicting interests; engaging powerful yet underrepresented commercial stakeholders like developers; and generating robust evidence of impact through indicators including participation rates and influences on planning processes.
Policy relevance
Co-curation is an alternative methodological framework for community engagement, offering a critical shift away from outcome-driven and tokenistic strategies in current modes of public participation in planning. In the context of Cambridge, a priority area within the UK government’s growth plan where inequalities persist, the urgency of amplifying community voices, especially those of marginalised groups, and foregrounding local knowledge is increasingly pressing. The Cambridge Room case study suggests how co-curation can support more inclusive and flexible forms of civic engagement that document and mobilise diverse views of the city to inform policy discussions and decision-making. More broadly, within the context of URs and ULLs, co-curation can be seen not only as a method but as a political proposition that foregrounds care, dialogue, and resistance to fixed hierarchies and knowledge systems.