Community Lab Will Not Be Happening This Year
To Everyone Who Is Reading This Message,We wanted to take a moment to inform, that after a really really incredible and deep year of building Community Lab together, we've made the decision to close the project. We wanted to share that clearly, and to tell you a little about how we arrived here.For the past year, the core team has been on a journey building this event together. It's been an extraordinary experience — one that let us live alongside each other, live together for 7 months develop, run a retreat together, test systems like sociocracy, make a bunch of mistakes, work through conflicts and deepen our relationships with one another. We had so much excitement for this project.A few weeks ago, we were seeing that we didn't have the number of participants that we believed we'd need, to bring this event to life. There was genuine excitement from many people, but we were lacking in clear commitments. We actually sat quite a bit with this question of, “what's happening here?”, “What is stopping people from fully commiting?”. Is there something we need to shift or change? Do we need to spread the word more? We planned on continuing to give it another 3 weeks, to continue spreading the word and accepting applications, but this past week, one of our four camps notified us that they were stepping out of the project.At this point, with this information of our fourth camp dropping, we took this as a sign that the project wasn't going to be able to stand up and get off the ground, and we really sat down to acknowledge that perhaps community lab didn't want to happen.In reaching this, we feel both big grief, and at the same time relief at listening to what's true. We also feel celebration and gratitude — for the journey itself, for the many people it brought us to, and for the connections and potential future collaborators we found along the way.To those who committed to being part of this, or who want to and now won't get the chance: we want to say that we're truly sorry. We realize the implications of an event of this length being cancelled and acknowledge the logistical complexity of filling that gap of time, as well as costs of plane tickets and other financial arrangements. It has also been a big regret and learning for us, to have a clear cancellation policy in plan for those who have committed and we are sorry to those who were leaning on this event and we will do our best to work with you to find solutions that feel mutually supportive.Thank you, to everyone, who was a part of this process. Whether you facilitated a meeting for us, hosted us on a podcast, signed up, came to a town hall, shared the event with a friend or owned the land that we were going to host the event on. If there's something you'd like to share with us, please reach out — personally or through our channels. We'd be glad to hear from you.With love,
The Core Team of Community Lab
Two Months - 50 People -
5 Camps - 1 Village
The Event
Community Lab is a 2 month incubator inspired by the design of Burning Man and Mars College, aimed toward people wanting to experiment in community living. It’s a way to explore what community is for you and how you want to live it.
We will form a village that will contain 40-50 participants, making 3 - 5 different camps. Each Camp will have it's own curriculum while our village will also have different chapters, bringing us on a collective wave. We are researching the effects of creating micro cultures that live harmoniously together. We hope that this experience will create a deep & positive impact into our personal lives and into the community movement.
The Camps
The experience will be a lot around you, your camp and what you’re researching together.Camps might gather around a specific theme, a research topic or some type of a co-creation. Perhaps one camp will focus on learning a skill or a practice (like circling or building a tiny house together) while another camp might create a collective performance. One group might want to create an ecovillage or build a business together during CL. The possibilities are endless.Within the wide frame that we offer, each camp shapes their own culture, curriculums and time spent together. They’ll explore how to live a life together with things such as cooking, decision making or conflict resolution tools. So no matter the research topic or theme, it’ll be a deep tribal experience for those participating.
The Village
Our camps will create our village setting. There will be days more focused on camp time, and days that are more focused on village time.During village time, everyone is invited to both offer and join workshops, experiences, discussions etc. beyond your camp, transforming the atmosphere into a dynamic, festival-like vibe. On these days you will explore, create, and learn—not only within your own camp but also across the wider village.
The Vision
Community Lab is a bridge for people wanting to explore the field of community living. Our intention is to offer a space to empower groups to create systems, curriculums and micro cultures that support their process of organizing, collaborating and living communally. Ultimately we want to be part of creating a world where people who want to live more communally and collaboratively, have a place to practice, make mistakes, and develop together.
Some of the Original Inspiration for the Birth of CL
- To help the community movement grow and bloom- To learn about tribal living, community building and practices needed within it- A place of empowerment and freedom to co-create- To find others with similar visions & inspire each other- To create networks between existing / future communities or organisations- To empower each of us to share our gifts with each other- To support the ecovillage of Solfors and for them to possibly expand their community vision- To experience a different world with sustainable systems and healthy living - a life we could see for future generations (addressing topics like: income, alone time, healthy routines and authentic relating)- To have a summer with heartful connections, profound realizations, gaining clarity, creating, playing, healing and learning / teaching
The Orientations of Community Lab
While each camp will have its own micro culture, we believe that a background overlapping culture will support our village to thrive and move cohesively. Similar to the pillars of “burning man” our shared orientations will support a vibrant and connective backbone for our experience together.In general, the more the following orientations align with your disposition, the more likely you are to thrive in this experience, because Community Lab is born out of these orientations.
The Community Lab Orientations are:
"You will most likely thrive at community lab if..."