Collective Actions: Co-Creation in Documentary

Documentary media is generally associated with linear film, with the idea that it is produced by one author, with a creative and narrative approach rooted strongly in cinematic traditions. What falls outside this categorization is often dismissed as merely community-based or amateur—too experimental, niche or elitist, or too editorially compromised. In the general cultural discourse, views of the possibility and power of pluralistic documentary forms remain limited. In this commentary, I demonstrate that documentary cannot afford to limit itself by conventional definitions of form, process, and singular authorship. Using the concept of co-creation as an organizing principle and methodology, I show that the genre can embrace a fuller range of realities and social conditions to represent, approach, reflect upon, simulate, and impact. I situate my argument with specific reference to three major works from a decade of my practice: the final documentary in the National Film Board of Canada’s acclaimed HIGHRISE documentary project, called Universe Within (2015); a field study and book with MIT Press, Collective Wisdom (2018-22); and my ongoing research and incubation initiative at MIT called WORLDING (2021-2025). Based on these works, I identify co-creative strategies and frameworks that illuminate some of the most urgent possibilities of the documentary genre: to advance justice and equality by engaging with reality in real time through collaborations, new technologies, new narrative possibilities, and iterative research frameworks. The commentary shows how this work opens a space for the concept of co-creation to emerge within and beyond the documentary genre.

The central research question of this commentary addresses the potential and limitations of extending co-creation. My documentaries, publications, and research from the years 2015-25 generated knowledge and influence in three critical areas: the codification of co-creative processes, the recognition of outcomes of co-creation as ecosystems and networks rather than fixed objects, and finally, how critiques of emergent media technologies could advance through co-creation. These three themes come together to support a broader definition of documentary that serves as a crucial tool not only in media and film studies but in a wider public understanding of the form. Increasingly, the public is turning to documentaries in seeking accuracy and indexicality in the representation and simulation of reality, especially in the context of the climate crises, rising authoritarianism, AI and for cultural and political meaning-making. Co-creation offers a network of navigational lights to illuminate these paths ahead.