In May 2026, Deborah Adams Doering, DOEprojekts, presented her thesis research at the symposium for the MA Design Research, Writing, and Criticism (D-Crit) program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
The presentation, Dreaming the Manifest-O: Outside Meets Inside at Kassel's documenta, explored how abstract forms, socially engaged art, and participatory design practices can challenge fixed ideas of belonging and exclusion.
The presentation includes a description of a vivid dream Deborah experienced in 2008, in which a circle transforms itself through movement. The "O" may be perceived as a vertical line, horizontal line, or point, and the path it traces through movement is an organic swash mark.
Deborah states:
My research centered on Just Us at Work (JUaW), the 100-day art action created by DOEprojekts and the Keiskamma Art Project (KAP) during documenta 13 in 2012.
Located inside Kassel's historic courthouse (the Amtsgericht), the project featured a 10 x 22 foot embroidered linen Coreforms wall hanging titled "Manifest-O". Nearby were our custom-created work tables that could be positioned as a circle or as an elongated swash surface. The tables supported a variety of creative work such as drawing, monoprints and other types of hand-created art works.
Visitors were not simply viewers; they became contributors to JUaW. One of the central questions of my presentation and written thesis is "Who gets to belong, and how does that status shift through participation, visibility, and recognition?
Rather than treating "inside" and "outside" as fixed opposites, my research proposes that these conditions are fluid and relational. A person may move between them through action, dialogue, hospitality, and creative exchange.
The presentation also connected my research to broader conversations in art and design theory. I discussed the influence of Kwame Anthony Appiah and his writing on cosmopolitanism, particularly the idea that universality and difference can coexist without collapsing into sameness.
I also referenced Johan Huizinga and his concept of the "magic circle" from his book Homo Ludens, as well as the participatory design methods explored in Convivial Toolbox by Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers.
A final section of the presentation reflected on the appointment of Ms. Naomi Beckwith and her curatorial team for documenta 16 in 2027. In interviews, Beckwith has spoken about wanting people to "live inside the art." That language resonated strongly with my own research into participation, relational space, and shifting conditions of belonging.
The larger thesis demonstrates that socially engaged art is not only about representation, but about creating situations in which people encounter one another differently. Coreforms function within this process not as fixed symbols with singular meanings, but as open forms that invite movemet, interpretation and collective participation.
I remain deeply grateful to the faculty, students, and community of the SVA D-Crit program for encouraging rigorous interdisciplinary research that bridges art, design, writing, and public discourse. -- Deborah Adams Doering
