704A: Learning From a City Built for Mice – Deploying Art and Storytelling as a Public Engagement Process for Children and Youth

October 02, 2019

3:45PM - 4:15PM

Over the course of four weekends in April 2018, Small Print Toronto explored how city growth generates environmental impacts to the landscape and its ecological systems through Mouse City: Valley. Through this program, participants aged 8-12 worked to answer the question “what is the story that the valley and the city tell together?”

In this session, Small Print Toronto will guide participants through the process of designing and facilitating city-building conversations accessible to the youngest residents of cities. Using the Mouse City program as a process for instilling lifelong engagement in civic issues, the session explores the use of storytelling and art as an inclusive city-building practice urban planners can use to meaningfully engage with citizens young and old on complex challenges facing cities. Experiences and products from Mouse City: Valley will be shared to illustrate how Mouse City can be deployed as both an educational tool as well as an opportunity to connect with city residents. Participants will be asked to reflect upon their practice of public engagement and how it can be more inclusive to the public and other professions and learn about Mouse City as a public engagement tool capable of translating various pressing urban planning issues into a digestible activity focused on collaboration and creativity.

Speakers