Founded by Gillian Russell and Frédérik Lesage, the Imaginative Methods Lab is a methods incubator dedicated to the design, analysis and deployment of research methods for collaborative imagining, prototyping, and experiencing different understandings of the present.
Working with individuals, communities, and organizations across the globe, we design methods and tools that engage people to question the worlds they live in, make tangible the ideologies that shape their experiences, and build critical literacies for co-creating the futures we need.
Through this work, we explore how to build a deeper and more democratic imagination in the hope of developing research in a more collective way, while building critical and creative tools for thinking and acting in times of crisis.
Imaginative Methods Lab is located at Simon Fraser University, on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Katzie, Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm), Qayqayt, Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), Tsawassen, and numerous Stó:lō Nations.
WHAT ARE
IMAGINATIVE
METHODS?
At the Imaginative Methods Lab we understand imagination as a way to activate research, which means our methods foreground the imagination as fundamentally part of any material intervention in the world.
We specialize in working with people to reconstruct existing practices and invent possible futures by drawing out collective imaginations. Against the purely rational and instrumental, the methods we design engage with the world, unveil hidden realities, and provide alternative perspectives for how to re-think the world. While there are no fixed recipes for imaginative methods, three key, overlapping values shape our understanding of how to do research:
IMAGINING AS
CRITICALITY
Research must challenge underlying assumptions about the world that sustain injustice, including the assumptions generated by research. Each of the methods we develop in the lab is designed to be investigative and experiential. They invite people to question established truths and to ‘live through’ the very problems we are trying to analyze and apprehend.
THINKING THROUGH
THE IMAGINATION
Research must be about more than creating knowledge, it should also involve intervening in the world in a thoughtful way. Imaginative methods operate not only as tools for knowledge building, but also for thinking. They are about perceiving, feeling and acting together, embracing uncertainty rather than understanding.
IMAGINING WITH
THE COMMONS
Research should always be driven by people. Imaginative methods involve people other than just experts engaging in research together. By designing and implementing methods with people we aim to collectively tackle the complex issues facing our realities.
Drawing from these values, the Imaginative Methods Lab is not simply about designing better research methods, it is about setting out to fundamentally reimagine how research can help us think and not know with others.
PEOPLE
The Imaginative Methods Lab is a collective of practitioners and researchers that bring with them a wide range of disciplinary experience and skillsets. (From Social Practice to Critical Design, Curating, Social Science and Anthropology).
Gillian Russell
Co-director
Hello! I am Gillian Russell. I am an assistant professor in design at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. With a background in Archaeology, Industrial Design and Curating. I am particularly drawn to working with people to explore the entangled complexities of technology, culture and environment, as a step towards co-creating the futures we want.
Dr. Gillian Russell’s research investigates how design can be used as a method for actively engaging publics in unveiling present realities and future possibilities. Drawing on tactics of speculative intervention and value-sensitive design her practice explores the potential for the imaginary as a design tool for social change. Her work has been featured at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, in the Porto Design Biennale, Helsinki Design Museum, Design Museum London, London Design Festival, Milan Furniture Fair and the Victoria & Albert Museum. She holds a PhD in Design History (2017) from the Royal College of Art, London, and was a SSHRC post-doctoral fellow at the Digital Democracies Institute, SFU.
Frederik Lesage
Co-director
I’m Fred Lesage. Although my current title is associate professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, in another life I was also an illustrator, actor, and (ahem!) puppeteer. I love collaborating with artists, designers, and anyone interested in questioning how established research practices reinforce the status quo and exploring alternative practices to create a better society.
Frédérik Lesage is an Associate Professor in information and communication technologies in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is a PhD graduate of Media@LSE in the London School of Economics and Political Science with previous appointments at the University of Cambridge and King’s College London. His research focuses on the intersections between digital culture and cultural production. Dr. Lesage is co-founder of the Imaginative Methods Lab. His work can be found in academic journals like Convergence, Fibreculture, and the International Journal of Communication. His latest book is a forthcoming (2023) co-edited work with Palgrave MacMillan in theCreative Working Lives book series titled “Creative Tools and the Softwarization of Cultural Production”.
Jihyun Park
Researcher
Hello! I am Jihyun Park. I am a designer and a researcher who explores design/social practices that can bring communities and people to work together toward better sustainability and ecological health. Currently, I am interested in visualizing interwoven lines of data, stories, relationships, processes, the earth, and people that are always in flux. I have been attempting to use this approach in order to figure out how we might intervene in the present world to alter it for the better.
In addition to studying communication design and psychology, Jihyun Park has worked in the design and art industries as a graphic designer, industrial designer, and video/media artist. Through the interdisciplinary master’s design program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, she integrated her diverse experiences into the study of sustainability and ecology. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Art and Technology (SIAT). In her research, she looks at how data can be activated through community engagement and design practices to support local sustainability and ecological crisis. Expanding her communication design background to the study of social change, she has been exploring responsive/collaborative visualization methods based on participatory design tactics through co-speculative and co-creative practices.
Samein Shamsher
Reseacher
Hi there, I’m Samein, a perpetual student who is currently working towards a PhD at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. At the moment I’m exploring the shifting domain of design education, trying to dream up alternative methods for what it might mean for us to learn, and study together as creative practitioners.
Working at the intersections of design, education, and community organizing, Samein’s approach to design and research draws on methods of creative ethnography, and narrative environments. He seeks to develop sites of intervention where the personal and political overlap. And his work has been exhibited in Milan, Eindhoven, and Vancouver. He is currently a PhD Mellon Fellow at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology and the Digital Democracies Institute, researching possibilities for social transformation through critical and radical design imaginaries.
Hannah Carpendale
Reseacher
Hi, I’m Hannah Carpendale. I’ve come to my current role as PhD student at Simon Fraser University’s School for Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) via a winding path that includes Sociology, creative writing, forest conservation advocacy, and contemporary circus arts. Merging my deep commitment to nature with my passion for creative expression, I am exploring creative ways of fostering understanding, engagement and advocacy around data related to biodiversity loss and climate change, in order to enact needed change around these overlapping crises.
Hannah Carpendale is a PhD student in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University. Leveraging her interdisciplinary background spanning social sciences, forest conservation and artistic practice, she is exploring creative pathways for data understanding, engagement and advocacy at the confluence of the ecological and climate crises. She has and continues to be involved in organizations and initiatives focused on conservation advocacy, community-based biodiversity research and naturalist mentorship, and has collaborated on several interdisciplinary projects merging dance and film as vehicles to engage with environmental issues.
Collaborators
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If we have collaborators to mention. Description here. Drawing on tactics of speculative intervention and value-sensitive design her practice explores the potential for the imaginary as a design tool for social change.
Name Efgsldkf
If we have collaborators to mention. Description here. Drawing on tactics of speculative intervention and value-sensitive design her practice explores the potential for the imaginary as a design tool for social change.
SUPPORTED BY
SSHRC funding
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