What is more possible now? #4
Note 4 of 5 in a mini-series of findings from a shared enquiry: Learning and doing ripples
But firstly some context …
During the Spring and Summer of 2022 the CoLab Dudley team and a constellation of Time Rebels have engaged in a shared enquiry through a range of joyful and searching collective reflection and sensemaking moments. In June 2022 we will reach the end of four years of Reaching Communities National Lottery investment in lab work on Dudley High Street, and we wanted to mark this milestone in our journey so far by asking ‘What is more possible now?’
Not only was this process co-designed with the intention of surfacing, weaving together and celebrating ‘What is more possible now?’ insights, but critically, it was also designed to create spaces for Time Rebel collaboration and collective dreaming about the practical next steps for their What If experiments. The whole shared enquiry period has been intentionally framed in active hope.
The shared enquiry process has included:
- group drawing and mapping deep timelines, ripple lakes and possibility points;
- quiet reflection time guided by the Zones of Possibility canvas to enable Time Rebels to dig into what is more possible at a range of levels including self, experiment and place;
- dedicated time with Time Rebel peers exploring reflections to help articulate practical What Next? steps;
- finally, on the 9th June we will all come back together in the lab on Dudley High Street to share insights, express challenges faced, and weave together dreams for the future by further integrating the stories of our individual What Ifs. Part of the purpose of the lab infrastructure is to ensure What If experiments don’t exist in isolation, rather they co-evolve and spark off each other in place.
In this brief series of lab notes we will share straight forward summaries drawn from this collective sensemaking process broken down into sections about:
- Revisiting our Why and What Next?
- Revealing potential
- Network vital signs
- Learning and doing ripples (below)
- Navigating challenges
The main messages and wisdom captured during this sensemaking and shared learning process will be available at the 9th June celebration in the form of our very own ‘What is more possible now?’ zine. Let us know if you would prefer getting to know the insights shared here in zine form and we will pop one in the post to you. Or if you are around Dudley High street and want to visit the magical displays and visual creations that bring these insights to life in full colour then you are most welcome to visit our What Is More Possible Now exhibition at the lab and chat with us over a brew. Pop along between 12pm and 2pm on Thursday 16 June or Thursday 30 June, or get in touch to arrange another time: colabdudley@gmail.com — we’d love to spend time with you.
Lab note 4/5 — Learning and Doing Ripples
We are passionate advocates of the agency of shared or social learning capability across transformative networks. We believe this is critical to systems change for regenerative futures.
Through our governance, practices, and ways of being in the world as lab team and Time Rebels we try to nurture a social learning capability in our networks in all sorts of creative ways, across many geographical, organisational, discipline and sector boundaries.
Over the last four years we have:
- been intentional about rhythms of convening shared learning and working out loud across the network including making all learning and data insights available to all, including: public life studies of the High Street; over 100 lab notes capturing the findings and methods of each experiment (e.g. this Do Fest long view analysis); open archives of hundreds of oral histories, cultural artifacts and stories of place; exhibitions and experiences on the High Street showcasing shared discoveries; and dozens of carefully researched designs for the High Street created by Birmingham City University architecture and design students in collaboration with the lab;
- invested in Time Rebel time for shared learning and reflection as a valued part of the creative, collaborative and experimental process;
- actively been designing, or collecting a treasure chest of tools and methods for shared learning and discovery that are rooted in this place (all shared under creative commons licence);
- supported Time Rebels to have curiosity and discovery baked into their experiment designs;
- been intentional as a collective about embracing lots of ways of knowing, learning and sensing/ sensemaking;
- created spaces for that learning to be collected, celebrated, shared and accessible to all;
- reached beyond our immediate boundaries into our wider networks to convene Fellow Travellers — a loose distributed network of people doing similar work across the UK and further afield. As a network we bring support/ inspiration, network weaving, share practical resources, and engage in regular formal and informal knowledge exchange sessions.
We have brought learning into the heart of our lab governance and practice through:
- making shared learning and cultures of curiosity /experimentation critical elements of our holistic goals and GUIDEing principles;
- ‘walking the walk’ of those principles by convening shared learning and reflection spaces in our role as network guardians. This has included practical skills shared in Trade Schools, as well as collective sensemaking, imagining and learning in shared enquiries, peer-to-peer learning journeys, or Open Project Night and more-than-human discovery and co-creation sessions;
- co-creating and sharing tools that support that shared learning in ways that are creative, practical and meaningful;
- opening up the design and practice of our continuous learning approach (detectorism in the wild) to all parts of our network in order to embrace many ways of knowing that better reflect our diversity as a community and the places we practice;
- engaging the regular support and guidance of Learning Partners: Civic Square, APEC Architects, and Birmingham City University School of Architecture and Design.
- these learning partnerships have further enabled collaboration in hosting a practice based PhD using participatory methods to explore: “Co-creation of regenerative ecosystems: The role of architectural and social lab processes in communities shaping their civic and social infrastructures.
