Vinay Kumar Mysore

community designer/researcher

Communities already hold the truest, most useful stories of themselves. My work is coauthorship: building alongside communities so their stories become exhibitions, publications, plans, and futures they recognize as their own.

I'm co-founder of In Good Company, a community design studio built on coauthorship. We make exhibitions and publications, run community consultations, and practice collective futuring with the institutions and neighborhoods we serve — planning the future with communities instead of for them.

The work takes many forms. Sometimes it's a thing you can stand in front of. Just as often it's narrative, advocacy, partnership, and long stewardship.

I also teach and mentor in design research and codesign at the graduate level, and partner with academic researchers as a codesign methodologist — most recently a two-year co-design study in palliative care transitions with Hôpital Élisabeth Bruyère and Ottawa General.

I’m a USA Leader with the Obama Foundation, and a member NEW INC, The New Museum’s global art and design incubator. I work across Canada and the United States from Ontario.

My work has been spotlighted and published across industries including: social impact, healthcare, built environment, applied ethnography, international development, and innovation.

Projects span my independent practice and prior studio roles; all listed work is work I led or co-led.

Courage in Care: standing with Black community doulas in New Jersey

Coauthored exhibit with Black community doulas — design research, development, fabrication, and community outreach, built so the doulas' own account of their work leads.
Outcomes include a travelling community exhibit designed and built with the doulas it advocates for.
The Burke Foundation, Aspen Institute and Narrative Initiatives. New Jersey. [9 months]

Ottawa Palliative Care: re-centering patients in end-of-life care transitions

Two-year codesign study with patients and caregivers transitioning from hospital to home, designing tools and metrics from lived experience of care.
Outcomes include a patient-designed care transition tool now in validity testing and academic publication.
Ottawa General Hospital & Hôpital Élisabeth Bruyère, Ottawa, ON. [24 months]

Teaching & Research: codesign as a discipline, not a buzzword

I teach and mentor graduate and early-career designers in design research, codesign, and community engagement, and partner with academic researchers as a codesign methodologist: designing studies where the method has to hold up to both community trust and peer review.

Engagements include graduate teaching and guest lectures, thesis advising, research collaborations in healthcare and cultural institutions, and methods development for community-partnered studies.

Parsons School of Design, School of Visual Arts, McMaster University, and others. Ontario & New York. [ongoing]

Designing Belonging: community pathways at the Portland Museum of Art

Community research and prototyping with Wabanaki, immigrant and youth communities coauthoring design and community recommendations.
Outcomes include senior leadership education, lasting relationships, and a community-validated strategy guiding the museum's outreach and planning.
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME. [9 months]

Balboa Park Cultural District: a truer story for an inclusive future

Coauthorship and outreach with Kumeyaay, cross-border, Black, and Filipino communities toward a cultural district visitor experience plan that reckons with colonial legacies rather than smoothing them over.
Outcomes include an actionable experience plan and durable engagement across a complex array of local and administrative stakeholders.
Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, San Diego, CA. [11 months]

Up from the People: honouring legacy at the MLK Jr. Library

Co-design and prototyping of every element of exhibit design with long-time Black residents, youth, artists, and activists across DC.
Outcomes include a final exhibit celebrating local figures, authored by the community it celebrates, in the DC Public Library's main branch.
Martin Luther King Jr. Library, DC Public Library main branch, Washington, DC. [9 months]

HeyMama: designing with working moms and kids during the pandemic

Provotype and participatory design research with working mothers and school-aged children, run entirely over WhatsApp with 100% completion.
Outcomes include improved home-working relationships, design kit families made their own.
HeyMama, Nationwide. [2 months]

East King County: design justice within a public-private partnership

Ethnographic research, futuring and coalition work with local leaders inside a large-scale masterplanning initiative — bringing frontline knowledge into rooms it's usually excluded from.
Outcomes include education, opportunity identification, and coalition building.
Private client, East King County, WA. [10 months]

UN Women Fund for Gender Equality: participatory innovation, coached

Design coaching and facilitation supporting fund grantees to run participatory design themselves through capacity building.
Outcomes include successful community-led initiatives for multiple local feminist organizations.
Fund for Gender Equality, UN Women, global. [4 months]