Imagining New Ways to Grow
How might we grow?
In 2022, Tim Barlott (minor praxis lab) began collaborating with the City of Edmonton (Sue Holdsworth and Kim Smith of RECOVER Urban Wellness) and social design shop InWithForward. We came together to collaboratively imagine how to grow a promising community initiative, Soloss (co-designed by InWithForward, REACH Edmonton, and RECOVER). Soloss is a peer support initiative around grief and loss – loss of connection, livelihood, self, well-being, land, culture, relationships, and loss of life.
This project has focused on ‘imagining new ways to grow,’ for Soloss, over time and in other communities. Too often, exciting and transformative community initiatives lose their magic when they become institutionalized or ‘grow.’
A workshop series
In early 2023, 24 people, who had been part of Soloss, came together for a set of workshops. These workshops focused on what Soloss was like for participants and on imagining the future of Soloss. Workshop participants included 16 community members who were part of Soloss; 4 people from InWithForward, who led the prototyping of Soloss; 2 people from the City of Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellbeing team, who supported the prototyping; and 2 people from minor praxis lab at the University of Alberta. In the workshops we talked, crafted, made posters, role-played, danced, and shared stories – all as part of imagining what ‘growth’ might look like for Soloss.
Growing programs?
Growing values?
We began thinking differently about the idea of ‘growth.’ Rather than growing Soloss in scale, there was a desire to grow, expand, or spread Soloss through the values and experiences it nurtures.
Co-creating an interactive card deck
In the months that followed our workshop series, we decided to co-create an interactive card deck, a card deck that centers the key values that surfaced in the workshops. Over the course of six months, eight people met in the library on weekends to collage and craft our card prototypes. The card deck, Imagining New Ways to Grow, was printed with support form the City of Edmonton.
We envision that this card deck can be used by folks in the Soloss network (and in similar networks) to spark creative conversations, actions, and relationships, and to nourish the values we hold dear.
With this card deck, we invite you to imagine new ways to grow.