Tiny Paper: Curation: Shaping Your World
In this part of the Tiny Paper series, we introduce the notion of “Curation Turn” - a reflection inspired by Oliver Ding's Curativity Theory.
In our digital age, the way we organize, select, and make sense of information has fundamentally transformed. Curation is no longer confined to museums and galleries—it has become a universal practice of shaping our world by transforming scattered pieces into meaningful wholes.
This tiny paper synthesizes three foundational perspectives:
The Ontological Foundation: Curativity as an ontological invention — understanding the fundamental triad of Pieces, Container, and Whole, and how it differs from both Creation and Integration.
The Practice in Action: The BACK TO W.E.C. Program case study — demonstrating "Creative Curation" through a two-month online program that revisited The Whole Earth Catalog using Milanote as its primary container, balancing creative freedom with curatorial structure.
The Transformation Framework: The Double Grid-Group Framework and seven stages of digital transformation — mapping how Platform Curativity, Institutional Curativity, and Individual Curativity interact, and how digital transformation unfolds from Awareness to Orientation.
Using real cases and theoretical frameworks, this paper reveals how we actively shape meaning in our lives—not passively consuming content, but deliberately organizing it within containers that give structure to our experiences.
What's Included:
- Curation: Shaping Your World
- Curativity as an Ontological Invention
- Creative Curation: The Whole Earth Catalog and the BACK TO W.E.C. Program
- Platform Curativity and Digital Transformation
At Possible Press, we are collaborating with several knowledge centers to publish a series of Tiny Papers.