At Kosmovision, co-design begins with a simple principle: creative programs should not only be made for participants, but developed with them.
This means listening carefully, offering accessible ways to make choices and being willing to change direction when participants show us what matters to them.
When participants changed the story
During Storybook Lab, our facilitators introduced different ideas for characters and stories. The participants responded that they did not simply want to create stories about someone else – they wanted to become the characters at the centre of the stories.
That response changed the direction of the program.
One participant’s starting interest was learning about unusual professions in Western Australia. As we explored different possibilities together, he chose to become a wildlife ranger and told us that he wanted to be the main character in his adventures.
From there, we co-developed an illustrated Storybook based on his character and the situations and challenges he might encounter as a wildlife ranger. The group also created a large three-dimensional model of Western Australia’s Kimberley region, which became the physical set for the stories.
What began as an interest in unusual professions developed into a character, a Storybook and a shared creative world built collaboratively by the group.
This creative journey was featured in the Spring 2026 edition of 3126 Magazine. You can read the full magazine article, or read more about it in our Impact Story.
Listening beyond spoken words
Co-design in disability-inclusive programs requires us to recognise that preferences can be communicated in many different ways.
Participants may communicate through speech, AAC, symbols, images, gestures, facial expressions, body language or supported communication. Their choices can also become visible through the ideas, materials and activities they repeatedly return to.
Listening therefore means more than asking a question. It means allowing time, observing carefully and offering different ways for participants to express what they want.
The NDIA’s supported decision-making principles recognise that people with disability must have access to the communication support they need and that decisions should be directed by their own will, preferences and rights.
Structure that makes choice possible
Participant-led practice does not mean removing all structure. Facilitators remain responsible for creating safe, accessible and achievable creative pathways.
The difference is that the structure supports participants’ choices rather than determining every outcome in advance.
This can include:
- Offering different ways to participate
- Presenting choices visually
- Allowing additional processing time
- Adapting activities for different communication styles
- Following participants’ interests across multiple sessions
- Making sharing and personal disclosure optional
- Checking that the developing work still reflects each participant’s intentions
This approach can be challenging. It requires flexibility, preparation and a willingness to let go of the facilitator’s original idea. But it also creates the conditions for more meaningful creativity, ownership and participation.
From participant-led to youth-led programs
The same principles guide Kosmovision’s work with young people.
In our youth programs, participants can influence the themes, characters, creative formats, group agreements and final outcomes. Facilitators bring creative knowledge, accessible processes and safeguarding responsibilities. Young people bring expertise in their own interests, identities and imagined futures.
The strongest programs emerge when these different forms of knowledge meet.
For us, co-design is an ongoing process:
We listen. We adapt. We show what changed. We ask again.
When participants told us they wanted to become the main characters, they were expressing more than a creative preference. They were asking to be active, visible and central within the worlds they were building.
By following their lead, Storybook Lab became more personal, ambitious and genuinely collaborative.
Creativity does not always begin with the perfect activity. Sometimes it begins by creating enough space for someone to show us where the story should go next.
