Civic Design Lab: Democracy as a Living System
The Civic Design Lab is an experimental makerspace where community members, nonprofit leaders, and civic actors come together to practice creativity as a tool for democracy and resilience.
Rather than aiming to “solve” problems directly, the Lab invites participants to exercise civic imagination — treating our perspectives and mindsets like muscles that grow stronger through use. Through creative constraints, collaborative art practices, and playful experimentation, participants expand their capacity to engage with complexity and see familiar challenges in new ways.
What Happens in a Lab Session?
• Guided creative exercises rooted in art-making, storytelling, and systems thinking
• Cross-sector collaboration among diverse participants
• Reflection on how creativity shapes resilience, belonging, and civic life
• Opportunities to prototype new perspectives and imagine alternatives
Each Lab session is designed to feel both rigorous and joyful — blending the seriousness of our civic challenges with the playful curiosity needed to approach them differently.
Why Civic Design?
We live in a moment of overlapping pressures — political polarization, climate crisis, economic inequality, and social fragmentation. The Civic Design Lab does not offer ready-made answers. Instead, it creates a regenerative process: a place to practice, to imagine, and to prepare ourselves and our communities to respond with creativity and resilience.
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Five-Session Journey
(Sessions are free. Apply to join all five or individual sessions.)
Session 1 — Democracy, But Make It Regenerative
From extractive systems to living ecosystems — reimagining governance as a regenerative practice.
Session 2 — Reality Check: The State of Democracy Now
A candid mapping of polarization, burnout, and what still holds communities together.
Session 3 — If Democracy Had a Vision Board
Collage, constraints, and creative play to imagine civic futures we can actually feel.
Session 4 — From Vision to Practice
Exploring small-scale civic rituals, prototypes, and practices that translate imagination into action.
Session 5 — Civic Design Lab: Democracy IRL
A live makerspace for experimenting with regenerative practices and collective imagination.
To apply to join any of these free sessions, email daniela@fieldandformca.com.