IRL: LAB

Explore how creative technology can connect people and places at IRL: Lab - a day of talks, workshops and playful experiments in Dumfries.

What could creative technology open up for the places and communities we work with?

IRL is a new programme from The Stove Network, funded by the Pathways Communities Fund. It brings people working in creative technology together with those working in community arts, heritage, regeneration and creative placemaking. We’re interested in what these fields might learn from one another, and the ideas that could grow from working together.

IRL: Lab is the first chance to explore this in person. Join us in Dumfries on Saturday 21st November for a day of talks, hands-on workshops, playful experiments and time to connect. Bring an idea you’d like to develop, a challenge from your work or a question about your place. You’re just as welcome to come with curiosity and see what sparks.

You’ll hear from and meet practitioners working across fields such as interactive storytelling, games and immersive experience. Could they help bring heritage to life, make space for people’s voices or offer new ways to take part in shaping a place? You don’t need technical experience, or even to be sure that creative technology is relevant to your work.

The Lab also makes room for conversation. As technologies such as AI develop rapidly, we want people working with communities to help explore their possibilities, impacts and tensions within the places they know.

The Lab is the beginning. Afterwards, an IRL development cohort will have the opportunity to take ideas further through expert-led workshops, mentoring and practical experimentation.