Rebekka Fuglestad, Javier Gonzalez, Mint Panisara, Michalina Fidos, and Mari Suoheimo
In recent years, museums and other cultural institutions in Norway have faced growing challenges related to migration, diversity, and inclusion. At Linderud Manor, a question is raised about how the museum can better include immigrant kindergarten children and their families. The complexity of the problem arises from the presence of multiple actors such as children, parents, kindergarten staff, museum employees, and the municipality.
The project was carried out as part of a Participatory Gigamapping course at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Using gigamapping as a central method, we explored the social, cultural, and institutional factors that influence inclusion at Linderud. The work began with desktop research, which resulted in insights that were gradually mapped to build an overview of the system at micro, meso, and macro levels.
To strengthen the understanding, a co-creative workshop was conducted with kindergarten teachers, museum staff, municipal representatives, and community members. The workshop focused on identifying barriers and opportunities related to parents, culture, accessibility, and everyday interactions between children. Insights from the workshop were added to the gigamap through several iterations, resulting in multiple versions that made the complexity of the system easier to understand and apply.
The mapping process helps identify themes, and through an impact and feasibility assessment, the project tries to discover small, low-threshold actions that could be more realistic and easier for the museum to implement over time. Overall, the project shows how gigamapping can help cultural institutions better understand complex social challenges and design more inclusive, grounded, and practical responses.
Keywords: gigamapping, holistic diagnosis, museum accessibility, remote communities, systems-oriented service design, inclusion
