1. Community and Knowledge
BFFs

2. Community
A group of people who share a commonality… a lived
experience, a thought, a group of knowledge

3. Old definition vs new
Communities used to be tied to location primarily, with
thought coming as a second. Older thought
communities: religious affiliation, universities, political
parties

4. Information
Every community relies on information. But information
doesn’t make a community. Information is widely
known, and vastly interpretable.

5. How a community uses information is “knowledge”
From studies, to census. Even text and lived experience is knowledge

6. Example
From a traditional community…..
Christianity

7. Information: Primarily, The Bible (New and Old
Testament)

8. Denominations: Community

9. Knowledge
• Each denomination has it’s own interpretation
of the same text
• Each denominationbuilds it’s own knowledge
through lived interpretation
• Community cohesion assured through
common basis of interpretation of information
• Information lived and synthesised into
knowledge

10. Knowledge impossible without community

11. As we build communities, we need
keepers of knowledge
Scribes to record information
Libraries, databases to store information
Elders, leaders to propagate knowledge
An entire community building more
according to its circumstance

12. Without living through this…

13. You couldn’t fully
understand this
installation called
“Blizzard”

14. Just like my grandmother can tell me that this wasn’t romantic… just cold.
And I can understand even though we now pay for the experience. Our
knowledge has changed dues to our lived experience.

15. Community and Knowledge
• Who is your community?
• Communities have exclusions and
inclusions, what are yours?
• How does your knowledge come about?
• How is it stored?
• How is it shared?