engAGE Living Lab

The engAGE Living Lab concept

The engAGE Living Lab is a rich sensory world where older adults and researchers mingle, make art and explore science through diverse creative public practices for wellbeing and community building. It begins in a neighbourhood mall, where older adults have been gathering for years to escape the winter cold or the summer heat, to exercise, talk, and solve problems over cups of coffee shared with friends. As a research project, it aims to find a solution to the public health crisis of social isolation and loneliness felt by record numbers of older adults.

Every other month, scientists, scholars, and students from Concordia’s engAGE Centre for Research on Aging, the PERFORM Centre, and the Art Hives Network bring together scientific knowledge and creative practices from intersectoral scholars, representing Health Sciences, Fine Arts, Leisure Studies, Policy Studies, Business, Engineering and Digital Technologies that respond to themes based on older adults’ concerns and interests.

Research methodology & objectives

This research project aims to find a solution to the public health crisis of social isolation and loneliness felt by record numbers of older adults. It begins in a neighbourhood mall, where older adults have been gathering for years to escape the winter cold or the summer heat, to exercise, talk, and solve problems over cups of coffee shared with friends.

Starting with this community-defined evidence, university researchers invite participation of older adults to join in a rich sensory world of making and exploring science through diverse creative public practices including music, visual arts, literature, digital technologies, dance, sand play, gardening, and cooking.

This ready-for-action plan animates a specific type of community space, a creative living lab, located in a mall storefront, for the co-creation, design, production, and dissemination of university- community research. Gradually, new relationships will form and a new type of community will emerge with enhanced diversity, resiliency and preparedness for innovative responses to wicked problems of our era.

Researchers

Funding

• Fonds de recherche du Québec: Plateforme de financements de la recherche intersectorielle sur le vieillissement