Angela Portillo

Taking a community engagement course has taught me the importance of engaging with the audience and researching. Before, I really did not think about who was viewing my work or if I could even engage with people in order to produce work. As the course went on, I eventually learned the importance of community engagement. Community engagement consists of the artist creating work that includes interaction with a community, which can include any group of people. There are different ways of engagement, but for me the most effective one is having the audience be part of the artwork, not just them viewing your work.

Community engagement fits into design practice because it includes many research methods that help expand your work or subject matter.  It involves archival research which can help or inspire an artists work by just browsing collected material. Community engagement also includes finding out more information by physically going to any institutions or related places about a subject.