Twenty years ago this week I flew to New York to start a life changing 4/1/2 month Fellowship at the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. Having recently finished a PhD exploring virtual museum models, it was the first time that I could be situated in a museum when they were beginning to experiment with the digital sphere. In general, museum websites at that time were mostly static, social media was in its infancy, and the idea of audiences as co-creators of cultural meaning was not discussed in polite circles.
My early research asked a deceptively simple question: "what might happen if museums began discussing their collections with audiences, asking them to participate rather than being told about them?"
That nascent question defined the next two decades of my research and practice.
In the mid-2000s, I worked with colleagues including Dr Lynda Kelly, Dr Jerry Watkins, Tim Hart and Seb Chan to explore and map new digital landscapes for cultural institutions. At a time when most museums were hesitant to “go social,” we explored how blogs, tagging, Flickr photos (who remembers those?!), and online forums could open up new avenues for participation (Russo & Watkins, 2005; Russo, Watkins, Kelly, & Chan, 2006).
Three key principles emerged:
- Dialogic Exchange – Museums could become spaces for conversation, not just authority (Russo, 2011);
- Informal Learning – Visitors learned not only from exhibitions but also from one another, especially online (Russo, Watkins, & Groundwater-Smith, 2007);
- Co-Creation – Audiences could shape cultural narratives alongside curators (Russo & Watkins, 2015).
Looking back, many of the dynamics we identified—sustaining engagement (Russo & Peacock, 2009), negotiating authority, and building trust online (Kelly and Russo, 2009) remain central to museum digital strategies today, even if the platforms have shifted from blogs to TikTok.
Two decades later, these ideas are alive in Fleurieu Made. At first glance, it looks like a straightforward knitwear brand, and on one level it is, but in practice it is also a continuation of my academic work.
- Community-Driven Storytelling: Just as we once argued that museums should let audiences co-create meaning, Fleurieu Made explores the voices and histories of vintage yarns, knitting machines and makers;
- Exchange: I continue to write to pass on my findings and encourage collaborations rather than simply sell and broadcast my products and services;
- Informal Learning: Fleurieu Made teaches skills and cultures that go with them, through stories, not lectures.
- Co-Creation of Identity: Much as museums once negotiated national identity, Fleurieu Made is in the first iterations of co-creating cultural commons spaces,(more on that later in the year) seeking to build a shared sense of place.
In other words, Fleurieu Made remains a living laboratory for participatory culture.
Scaling Up: The FM Circular Fashion IQ Index
While Fleurieu Made grounds my need to continue conducting research, my latest project, the FM Circular Fashion IQ Index, scales these same principles. If museums once struggled to embrace participatory digital tools, fashion today faces a similar convergence of pressures: policy, technology, and consumer demand (Fashion Council Germany, 2025).
I’m currently working on the FM Index , a hybrid SaaS platform that helps brands, retailers, and consumers measure and communicate circular fashion performance (Fleurieu Made, 2025). Like my early museum work, it is built on:
- Dialogue: Connecting policymakers, brands and consumers;
- Co-Creation: Allowing multiple stakeholders to shape and validate circular standards;
- Informal Learning: Translating the outcomes of complex regulations, such as the EU Digital Product Passport, into accessible consumer tools;
- Trust Through Transparency: Providing verifiable data to cut through greenwashing (Wynants, 2025).
At Berlin Fashion Week’s Metamorphosis dialogues, industry leaders noted that consumers are more ready for circular solutions than brands are to deliver them (Fashion Council Germany, 2025). The FM Index bridges that gap by providing frameworks, integration pathways, and ROI cases to help the industry act.
Twenty years on from the Smithsonian experience, institutions and industries are again rethinking digital presence. The pandemic normalised virtual engagement, and AI is now reshaping creativity and verification. Yet the fundamental questions we asked in 2005 remain:
- How can digital platforms sustain genuine engagement and generate trust?
- What is the balance between authority and community voice?
- How do we make participation meaningful rather than transactional?
From museums to makers to markets, I believe the answers lie in dialogue, co-creation, and learning through exchange. As Fleurieu Made continues to grow and the FM Index expands , I see these projects as connected stages of the same inquiry. The systems, stories and standards we build with one another, not for one another, may well define the next twenty years.
References
Fashion Council Germany. (2025). Metamorphosis: Dialogues about change [Conference report]. Berlin Fashion Week. Retrieved from https://fashion-council-germany.org
Fleurieu Made. (2025). Fleurieu Made media calendar: April–October 2025. Unpublished internal strategy document.
Russo, A. (2011). Transformations in cultural communication: Social media, cultural exchange, and creative participation. Curator: The Museum Journal, 54(3), 327–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2011.00095.x
Russo, A. (2012). The rise of participatory culture in museum communication. In K. Drotner & K. Schrøder (Eds.), Museum communication and social media (pp. 119–134). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Museum-Communication-and-Social-Media/Drotner-Schroder/p/book/9780415893463
Russo, A., & Peacock, D. (2009). Great expectations: Sustaining participation in social media spaces. In Museums and the Web 2009. Retrieved from https://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2009
Russo, A., & Watkins, J. (2005). Digital cultural communication: Audience and remediated cultural experience in museums. International Journal of Education through Art, 1(3), 259–276. https://doi.org/10.1386/etar.1.3.259/1
Russo, A., & Watkins, J. (2015). Digital cultural communication: Audience co-creation and the reshaping of cultural institutions. Convergence, 21(1), 20–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856514553861
Russo, A., Watkins, J., Kelly, L., & Chan, S. (2006). How will social media affect museum communication? In Proceedings of Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums (NODEM). Retrieved from https://www.nodem.org
Russo, A., Watkins, J., & Groundwater-Smith, S. (2007). The impact of social media on informal learning in museums. Educational Media International, 44(3), 153–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523980701491652
Wynants, J. (2025). AI against greenwashing: Technology for transparency. Presentation at Metamorphosis 2025, Berlin Fashion Week.