About the joy lab

Joyful queer worldmaking with 2slgbtqia + children, youth, families & school workers

Through participatory visual inquiry, the Canada Research Chair funded-JOYLab works with 2SLGBTQIA+ communities—children, youth, school workers and families—and with broader publics to co-create art and resist in the face of increasing instability, including the rise of anti-queer and anti-trans rhetoric and education policies across Canada. The JOYLab seeks to advance accessible research methods with 2SLGBTQIA+ participants to engage in research inside and outside of schools to work toward social change. Providing a social justice-informed and gender and sexuality focus to community-building and media-making, the JOYLab engages 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in processes of joyful queer worldbuilding to resist uncertain futures together.

Our team

The JOYLab is run by Dr. Casey Burkholder (Tier II Canada Research Chair in Social Justice in Youth & Child Studies).

Casey is a white woman in her early forties with big black framed glasses and straight bangs. She is smiling, wearing a black coat with a visible zipper. The background is beige.

Director

Casey Burkholder (she/her)

Dr. Casey Burkholder is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Social Justice in Youth and Child Studies and an Associate Professor at Concordia University. Casey's research centers justice and equity. Part of this work mobilizes research funding from external bodies and invests these funds in her community through the redistribution of resources. In choosing a research path at the intersection of resistance and activism, gender, sexuality, DIY media-making, art production, queer joy, and participatory archiving, Casey engages in research for social change through participatory visual approaches to local issues with 2SLGBTQ+ youth, adults, elders, and teachers. She is the primary investigator of SSHRC-funded projects, including: Pride/Swell+, SexualityNB, and her CRC funded project, the JOYLab.

Megan is a white femme in her late twenties, sitting on a park bench similing. She is wearing an orange bandana, covering her hair, and a green and white gingham dress. She has a few tattoos visible on her arms, and there are trees and a statue in the background.

PhD Student & RA

Megan Hill (she/they)

Megan Hill is a PhD student in Education at Concordia University. Her doctoral research is about intergenerational knowledge exchange between elders and children within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. She recently completed her master’s at Trent University, where she wrote a SSHRC-supported thesis titled “Queer Crip Generativity”. Megan is an active member of the Aging Activisms collective as well as a research assistant on Pride/Swell+. In her spare time, Megan works at a queer youth summer camp developing accessible and joyful programming.

Angela is an Asian person in their twenties, with brown hair to their shoulders, smiling sitting outside. She is wearing silver metal frames and has a dimple on her right cheek. She is wearing a grey collared shirt with a white t-shirt underneith, and a gold necklace poking out.

Master's Student & RA

Angela Ponio
(She/They)

Angela Ponio is a Master's student in the Educational Technology Program at Concordia University. She is passionate about leveraging technology to create inclusive and accessible learning environments for neurodiverse learners and marginalized communities. With a background in Psychology and Health Studies from Queen's University, Angela has contributed to impactful research in the Queen's Sexual Health Research Lab, developing expertise in data analysis, research methodologies, and academic writing. Angela is thrilled to join the research team for the project Pride/Swell+ Petit Research under the supervision of Dr. Casey Burkholder.

Alix is a young white woman smiling with black lipstick and black glasses, holding a black cat. She is sitting in a white room with plants and pictures covering the walls around her. Her hair is brown and below her ears, she is wearing dangly earrings and a black dress.

Undergraduate Student & RA

Alix de Supervielle-Rageau
(She/Her)

Alix de Supervielle-Rageau is majoring in Psychology and Child Studies. She enjoys all types of crafting, plants, and her cat Cilantro. Lately she has been sewing a lot of little felt ornaments and crocheting too.

Alisha is a young light-skinned Black woman, with curly hair to her shoulders. She is smiling and wearing clear glasses, and a silver neckace.

Undergraduate Student & RA

Alisha Viau

(SHe/her)

Alisha Viau is an undergraduate student in the Early Childhood and Elementary Education Program at Concordia University. She graduated from Vanier College's Early Childhood Education Program. She enjoys music, art, sewing, dancing, and collecting trinkets.

Hazel is a young white woman, standing outside smiling. She has long brown hair, with sunglasses on her head, and is wearing a black turtleneck. Behind her is a body of water and a ferris wheel.

Undergraduate Student & RA

Hazel Robinson
(she/her)

Hazel Robinson is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Concordia, majoring in Child Studies and Human Environment. She enjoys embroidery, knitting, and spending time outside.

LAB VALUES

We are guided by the following values and beliefs. This list was inspired by the following labs and projects: The Action IN the Making Lab, The Feminist Media Studio, The Childhood Place Pedagogy Lab, and the Civic Lab for Environmental Action Research.

Care

We practice a queer femme pedagogy of care. We bring our whole selves to the JOYLab including sometimes the messy and the personal, our bodies and identities, and our loves and families. We care for one another, the space, and our work no matter how we show up!

Two knitting needles, a ball of yarn, and a multi-coloured knitting project.

Community

Our community work at the JOYLab takes place on stolen lands. We acknowledge and problematize colonialism and white supremacy in queer and academic spaces. We are responsible to and working to serve the queer whole community.

Abolition

We learn from and seek to practice abolition in our lab, and believe in a future free from white supremacy, policing, and prisons. We don't always get it right, but we won't throw each other away. We prioritize repair, communication, and conflict resolution.

A zoomed in image of multiple pride rainbow flags being waves around.

Queer Joy

We believe queerness is a gift and a joy. We reject framings of queerness as risky, broken, and depressing. We work and create through a desire-based approach rather than a deficit approach. We resist violence and transphobia and queerphobia together. Queer joy is the future!

A large display of different types of candy

Consent

We acknowledge the violent history of research in community spaces, particularly with Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour. In our work, consent is always ongoing and co-constructed. Research participants are collaborators with rights. Everything we do is opt-in.

Abstract tangled multicoloured ribbons, converging in a pile.

Connecting across difference

We seek to build connections across the lifespan, across the queer community, and across disciplines. Our different experiences and backgrounds bring abundance. We will remain open and curious when we encounter difference rather than judgemental, as we share and show up for one another.

Our Space

The outside of the FG building. There is a Concordia sign above the doorway, a green sign that says "FG" in a window and the street number 1610 in white lettering.

Two masked people are sitting on the floor in front of a large hand-decorated tapestry. The kid on the left is light skinned, wearing a pink dress and is around five years old, and the person on the right is leaning towards the kid, light-skinned with a shaved head wearing a black turtleneck and blue jeans, and is in their twenties.

Our space is currently a work in proGress, but We aim to open our physical lab in Spring 2025 in the Concordia Department of Education.

About our Space

COVID-19 Protocols

At the JOYLab, we practice COVID-19 harm reducation protocols as a way to make our in-person gatherings more accessible. We mask at all in-person events and meetings (masks are provided if folks need them) and have HEPA filters running in our lab. We keep each other safe <3.

Resource Sharing

The JOYLab is pro mutual aid! We seek access to government funds and grants as a way to redistribute resources into the community. We share supplies, food, space, time, and resources. We are open to collaboration and foreground resource sharing as a foundational part of our work.

DiY Approach

We believe that art is for everybody! We value process over product! We share skills, supplies, knowledge, and support. We draw on low-fi DIY aesthetics, and their underground feminist roots, as a way to experiment with art and honour diverse ways of knowing. This means that our art is often not technically perfect, it is experimental and sometimes full of mistakes, and we think that's cool.

Accessibility

We are always thinking about accessibility in our physical and online spaces! Our events and spaces already include the following accomodations and we are always open to feedback to improve our accessibility.

- Wheelchair accessible spaces;

- Access and proximity to accessible and gender neutral washrooms;

- Using fonts and sizes that are legible for the colour-blind and screen-reader users;

- Including image descriptions;

- Scent-free;

- Availability of low sensory spaces (low noise, low lights, fidgets etc.);

- Ergonomic art materials and adaptations (ex. grips).

About the joy lab

Joyful queer worldmaking with 2slgbtqia + children, youth, families & school workers

Our team

LAB VALUES

Our Space

About our Space

Our funders & Partners