This year, on 19 + 20 June, Dundee is teaming up with Mexico City, the largest city in the Southern hemisphere to share stories and cultures from the two cities. During the two day Small Society Lab we want to explore ideas to help improve the future of Dundee…. but we need your help! 

To give us a good starting point for the Lab, we are collecting everyday and extraordinary aspects of living in our city – short film clips, photographs, stories and sketches – to show and celebrate our culture, streets, design, food, music, art and our lifestyle in Dundee.

We need your assistance, and would love you to send us a brief insight into your life, which will be useful for developing ideas and might surprise people living on the other side of the world! Creative Dundee has experience in sharing local content in different ways, having previously ran both the We Dundee and Screen in the Square projects.

We would like to hear from everyone, although we’re particularly interested in hearing from: community groups of all types, young and older people, independent shop/cafe/business owners and musicians/artists/designers.We’re not looking for high quality professional footage, filming or taking photos on your mobile phone/camera would be perfect.

Here’s a list of the types of things we’d hope to see, but it could be anything about Dundee! We need your content to be sent in at the very latest by 18 June 2015.

City Streets:

– Take photographs from the street of as many shop window displays as you can.
– Take photographs of as many examples of graffiti or signage as you can find.
– Go to the tops of towers, top floors of tall buildings and take photographs of the city from these vantage points.
– Film footage of your bus, car or cycle journey around the city.
– Film your favourite places in the city – a favourite place to meet friends, or to sit when it’s sunny, or where to read a book.
– Record how most people travel to their work.

Food:

– Make a photo diary of the stages of making your favourite meal.
– Ask people to share favourite recipes with you – film people talking about them or making the meals they love.
– Record the sounds of people ordering, making and eating food.
– What dish or ingredient is your city famous for? What’s healthy and what’s not? Record people talking about what they think of this ingredient or dish. When do they use/make it? Do they like it?
– Where is food grown locally? Film people talking about their allotments, garden vegetable plots or where ever they grow their own food.
– Capture what the cafe culture is like in your city.

Music and Popular Culture:

– Film as many street musicians as you can find.
– Record a night out clubbing or a live music event.
– Photograph as many posters for events happening in the city as you can.
– Capture the underground scene.
– Record how people spend their free time.
– Write a piece on how people get their local news in the city.

What digital format to send:  

We welcome: short* film clips, audio recordings, photographs, stories, poems, sketches or anything digital which we’ve not thought of! * Please limit videos/recordings to just a few seconds/minutes only please.

How to send us your content:  

The deadline is Thursday 18 June to send it over. It’s really easy to submit your content, simply upload your file by clicking on this link to this google folder: bit.ly/smallsocietylab (max size – 20 MB). If this isn’t quite big enough then please use: www.wetransfer.com (max size – 2GB) and send the file to news@creativedundee.com

What will happen with your content:  

At the Small Society Lab in June, people might use your content to inspire them to hack a new way of visualising their way around the city; or write a poem about a local Dundee recipe; or create an audio piece that interprets Mexican street life; or solve a challenge facing our high street. You are very welcome to attend the two day Small Society Lab on 19 + 20 June, it’s free and you just have to book in advance: www.creativedundee.com/ssl

If you include your email address when you submit content then we’ll keep you posted and invite you along to the grand finale event on the 20th June at 6pm with Mexico City. We’re also making a short film using the crowdsourced digital content, if your content is featured then we will of course credit you in this.

We are big fans of Creative Commons, therefore by sharing your content, you will be doing so under a Creative Commons Non-commercial Share Alike Licence.

About the Small Society Lab:  

The Small Society Lab is an open project which explores the development and understanding of the small city of the future. Based in Dundee, the Lab is now in its 5th year. This year’s programme is delivered by Dundee Contemporary Arts, the University of Dundee and Creative Dundee. Over the years SSL has worked with citizens and local and international partners to explore themes of democracy, making and digital value, through to serendipitous communities and community-run bakeries.

Read more about the connection with Mexico City, through the project Digital Futures UKMX Labs, here.