Civic Imagination Lab

Civic Imagination Lab is a creative platform for community-led transformation. We bring people together to imagine and build just, joyful, and regenerative futures. Through collective storytelling, art, and meaningful dialogue, we explore how policies, systems, and public life could work differently, and more equitably, from the ground up. Based in Ottawa, and formerly known as RCAD Initiative, we now focus on reimagining the civic, the possible, and the planetary. We work with youth, artists, policymakers, educators, and everyday changemakers to spark what we call civic imagination, the ability to dream new worlds into being, and then start building them. Through futures workshops, pop-up design labs, and other forms of creative collaborations, we support people in enhancing their policy literacy, shaping public conversations, and dreaming bold new systems from the ground up. Because if we want a different future, we have to imagine it first – and build it together.