Housed at the SFU School of Communications, Creative Publics Lab is an emergent project that reimagines the university as place to develop new political practices. The lab brings together post-secondary students with local practitioners to work on experimental art, design and media projects aimed at developing new political practices that engage local communities in issues of public concern.
Why is Creative Publics Lab necessary?
Despite spending more time in postsecondary institutions than any generation before and being the most educated generation of all time, students leave undergraduate programs without learning basic skills for media-based community organizing and applied political communication.
This is the case despite younger generations facing a political environment of mounting debt, diminished job security, increasing costs of food, tuition and housing and a convergence of challenges caused by the threats of climate change and intensifying income inequality. In the face of these collective challenges – digital civic literacy, community organizing and political communication competencies have never been more important and the need to support new forms civic engagement has never been greater.
creative publics lab 