About my work — 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.