CoLab Dudley

We cultivate community-led action that invites people to think differently about the places they live, work and play in.

 

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Instigated by Dudley CVS, CoLab Dudley is one of many ways that we are cultivating community-led action. The CoLab Dudley team bring local people together to lead or contribute to collective enquiries and experiments. Through these communities are invited to share and deepen their knowledges, skills and relationships with people and place. 

CoLab Dudley is currently working on the following three strands of activity. You can find out more about the team and this work at colabdudley.net

 

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Restorying our relationships with land is about learning to live in harmony with the ecological, cultural and historical realities of our place.

Explorations in Dudley borough are being supported from autumn 2025.

 

Dudley People's School for Climate Justice is a collection of projects and enquiries involving local people, inviting nature connection. Led by members of the CoLab Dudley team, local people, and collaborators from Ekho Collective CIC and Workshop 24. 

Taking place across Dudley borough between spring 2024 and winter 2026.

 

Understory brings people together to consider relationships, time and place. We're exploring community action using maps, games and making.

Taking place with communities in Dudley borough, south Derbyshire, Minehead and Watchet between spring 2025 and winter 2028.

Get in touch

If any of this has made you curious and you’d like a chat, get in touch with Lorna Prescott: email lorna@dudleycvs.org.uk | call or message 07501 722255

Lab Notes

The CoLab Dudley team and collaborators share their work and learning out loud through an online publication on Medium. The latest Lab Notes are below, see more at medium.com/colab-dudley

- Jo Orchard-Webb
Decolonising our learning practices and the role of semi-permeable boundary holding

Part of a mini-series about our co-evolving collective learning practiceYou can see more from Maddy Harland, Daniel Christian Wahland Sam Rye, in our Fertile Edges Inspiration exhibition and gathering booklet.Lab note mini-series contextThis lab note is part of a series offering a deeper dive into our co-evolving collective learning or how we learn together.The first note offers a summary of critical shifts in power, connection and accountability this way of collective learning cultivates.The second note offers a little bit more detail about “detectorism” as the foundation to our collective learning and why we learn like this.The following notes take a look at ‘What does disruption of business as usual project learning look like in practice?’ These mini lab notes cover nine different practical strategies we use to diversify evidence and value in… Read More

- Jo Orchard-Webb
Diversifying data gathering to cultivate inhabitancy

Part of a mini-series about our co-evolving collective learning practiceLeft: We have cultivated a practice of weaving the wisdom of our more-than-human kin into our learning. Here Deb lifted up and expressed gratitude to nests: “Nestedness of action, learning, potential & weaving of kith & kin”. Right: Counter-mapping canvas co-created by the Tending People, Place and Planet community locating their tending experience through stitching the counter-map of the garden.Lab note mini-series contextThis lab note is part of a series offering a deeper dive into our co-evolving collective learning or how we learn together.The first note offers a summary of critical shifts in power, connection and accountability this way of collective learning cultivates.The second note offers a little bit more detail about “detectorism” as the foundation to our collective learning and why we… Read More

- Jo Orchard-Webb
Commoning knowledge, knowledge weaving and relational ethics

Part of a mini-series about our co-evolving collective learning practiceCollective learning in Watchet with Understory partners and our deep-time stewards the SandwitchesLab note mini-series contextThis lab note is part of a series offering a deeper dive into our co-evolving collective learning or how we learn together.The first note offers a summary of critical shifts in power, connection and accountability this way of collective learning cultivates.The second note offers a little bit more detail about “detectorism” as the foundation to our collective learning and why we learn like this.The following notes take a look at ‘What does disruption of business as usual project learning look like in practice?’ These mini lab notes cover nine different practical strategies we use to diversify evidence and value in our collective learning. They are grouped into four… Read More