Scholars and artists collaborating for social change: the ‘In the Shadows of Ferguson’ multi-media project

The ‘In the Shadows of Ferguson’ (ItSoF) multi-media project tells a story about how institutionalised racist housing and urban policies have shaped spatial patterns and opportunities for social and economic mobility for Black Americans in the St. Louis metropolitan area. This collaboration between an urban planning professor and a filmmaker sought to create an empirically-based narrative about the policies, laws, and practices that formed St. Louis into a racially divided landscape in order to spur dialogue on how to reverse this pattern. ItSoF combines social science research, art, and media and was performed as a one-hour studio performance and an immersive and interactive multi-media exhibit. The project is intended to educate a broad audience, including students, scholars, policymakers, and the public in order to provoke reflection, evoke empathy, and mobilise the audience towards social action and policy change. What we learned from working on this project was that the key to having a successful collaboration between groups that have different skills sets and disciplinary cultures was to continuously evaluate the work, recalibrate and communicate expectations often, have shared values and goals, and be adaptable with expectations when the project evolves.