Supporting Community Participation in Interactive Exhibits

We describe the Byker Lives Table, an interactive installation that aimed to support user-contributed content in an exhibition of community history around a landmark housing development. As both the history of the development and subsequent social problems in the area are contentious issues, we aimed to support discussion around content that might mean very different things to different people. Based on a yearlong deployment, we reflect on the exhibit in terms of its ability to support community participation, create dialogue representing multiple perspectives on the content and allow lightweight curation