Larpocracy Symposium: Building democracy through play, humour, and grassroots culture (16/10/2025)

12 Dec

Written By ZU UK

On 16 October 2026, we hosted an online panel bringing together three pioneering Horizon Europe projects to discuss the future of democratic participation. If you missed the live session, you can watch the recording to see how we are using creativity to fight polarisation.

🎬 What We Covered

We brought together experts to explore how arts-based and game-driven methods are being used to foster empathy, critical thinking, and civic engagement.

🔑 Key Projects Featured

Larpocracy: Using Live Action Role Play for social impact. Democratic Literacy and Humour: The role of comedy in civic resilience. Democracy In Action: Our own initiative on active citizenship. The Power of Arts-Based Methods in Democracy The panel moved beyond traditional political discourse to analyse how arts-based and game-driven methods act as powerful tools for society. We explored how these immersive techniques successfully:

Foster Empathy & Dialogue: By placing citizens in simulated scenarios, we broke down barriers and encouraged perspective-taking. Encourage Critical Thinking: We discussed how gaming mechanics help users identify and deconstruct logical fallacies.

The projects showcased strategies to tackle exclusion and anti-democratic tendencies through active participation rather than passive observation.

You can watch the full Larpocracy symposium via YouTube, or access the video on this page (below):