Dodo Lab Projects

Sample Public Engagement Projects

Prince Edward Island,Canada, 2009Greenscale Survey

Participants responded to a series of icon-based questions exploring the idea of what makes a “green” space or development. Staged at the main public square and at the public market. One of a series of projects designed to engage the community in explorations of perceptions of place and environmental issues on the island.



Montreal, Canada, 2009World Environmental Education Congress

Conference participants responded to a series of surveys and engaged with mapping exercises and artist’s projects to explore the challenges of environmental education and development across cultural and social boundaries.

Rijeka, Croatia, 2010Dear Rijeka

A series of poster interventions throughout the city of Rijeka designed to link DodoLab’s program in the city with a parallel project in the Sudbury, Canada. Both cities have significant industrial histories and face challenges of economic transition and a redefining of civic identity.

Rijeka, Croatia, 2010Dear Rijeka

Rijeka, Croatia, 2010Mobile Café

A mini café developed in collaboration with artist Tomislav Brajnovic. The café was moved around the city and positioned in public spaces to encourage unexpected conversations with the community about its past and potential future.

Rijeka, Croatia, 2010Mobile Café

The Mobile Café incorporated a postcard variation on the Dear Rijeka poster project encouraging citizens of Rijeka to send messages to the city of Sudbury.

Rijeka, Croatia, 2010Rijeka Is?

From a kiosk on the main public square, DodoLab invited citizens of Rijeka to make a unique wearable button that shared their ideas of Rijeka. A variation on a tool used in a number of DodoLab projects where people are asked to share and wear their ideas.



Hamilton, Canada,2010-2011New Workers Songbook

Inspired by labour and union songbooks from the 1930s and 40s, DodoLab has been collaborating with artist/musician Tor Lukasik-Foss on the creation of new songs about working in Hamilton, a city of heavy industry that has been steadily loosing its manufacturing base. A number of different survey tools have been used to collect current perceptions of work, in this case a large graph marked with stickers. The results help generate new songs.

Fort McMurray and the Oil Sands, Canada, 2010This Place is Labeled As?

DodoLab designed a series of labelling and tagging projects to capture this community’s perceptions of how they are defined and how they define themselves. The main public project took place at the newly built Suncor Community Leisure Centre in conjunction with a major research conference focussing on social, cultural and environmental impacts of Oil/Tar Sands development in Fort McMurray and surrounding communities.

Fort McMurray and the Oil Sands, Canada, 2010This Place is Labelled As?

This double-sided tagging project asked people to describe how Fort McMurray is labeled countered or matched by their response to “But This Place Is Also...” The project was designed to both capture public perceptions of the community and to encourage dialogue with the researchers attending the conference. Messages from the tags were shared online.


The over 500 tags generated in this project were incorporated into an accessible curtain of comments the public could read and respond to. At the end of the project the tags were given to researchers from the University of Alberta to be used as part of further researcher and community development.


DodoLab is an art and design based program lead by Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter that researches, engages and responds to contemporary community challenges, with a particular focus on the natural world, social systems, the built environment and cities in transition. They employ creative public interventions that are truly collaborative, encourage and evolve out of dialogue and critical reflection, and that strive for tangible and meaningful outcomes. DodoLab is consistently interested in the barriers to adaptation and change and engaging the public in public through projects that involve individuals and organizations who bring a diversity of experience and expertise. DodoLab’s always evolving methods of engagement reflect Hirmer and Hunter’s backgrounds in art, design, architecture, education, writing, image making and installation. DodoLab uses the archetypal extinct species as its name/logo as a reminder that we need to consider the risks of isolated and narrowly defined cultural and social models and the challenge of adapting to rapid change. (The dodo, which evolved and was ideally suited to its isolated predator free island home, could not adapt to the speed of change in its environment in the 17th century.)

DodoLab is a program of Waterloo Architecture funded by the Musagetes Foundation and enhanced by commissioned collaborations with individuals and organizations in Canada and Internationally (including universities, municipalities, social service organizations and the arts). DodoLab is currently engaged with ongoing projects across Canada, in the United Kingdom and Croatia. They recently received a major commission from Harbourfront Centre in Toronto based on their Icons of Canada program.

Lisa Hirmer is a designer/photographer/artist/writer based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She is an adjunct faculty member and researcher at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture and a principal of DodoLab. She has a Bachelors of Architectural Studies and a Masters of Architecture from the University of Waterloo and joined DodoLab after completing a thesis about the significance of nature and wilderness in contemporary culture – work which won an Ontario Association of Architects Award of Excellence and was placed on the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Honour Roll. Her photographic and graphic work has been exhibited in projects in Canada, Europe and the UK.

Andrew Hunter is an artist/writer/curator based in Dundas, Ontario, Canada. He is an adjunct faculty member and researcher at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture and a principal of DodoLab, which he launched in 2009. Hunter has exhibited widely in Canada and internationally and has produced numerous exhibitions and publications on art, society and culture over the past two decades. His major projects include contributions to the exhibitions and publications Tom Thomson (National Gallery of Canada & Art Gallery of Ontario) and Emily Carr (National Gallery of Canada & Vancouver Art Galley), Ding Ho/Group of Seven (with Gu Xiong (McMichael Canadian Art Collection) and his solo projects The Other Landscape (Art Gallery of Alberta), To A Watery Grave (Confederation Centre Art Gallery), Hanksville and Billy’s Vision (Mendel Art Gallery) Cul-de-sac (University of Lethbridge), Dark Matter (Confederation Centre), Stand By Your Man (Art Gallery of Hamilton/Art Gallery of Alberta), Giddy-Up! (Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre), Lalla Rookh (Proboscis, UK) A Fisherman’s Tale (Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik, Croatia). He has held curatorial positions at Kamloops Arts Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Hamilton and University of Waterloo (RENDER).

web: www.dodolab.catwitter: dodolabflickr: dodolabemail: [email protected] and [email protected]

Documents

Dodo Lab Projects