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Sunday marks the final day people can head down to the Saskatchewan Science Centre to snap selfies at JoyLab.
The exhibit is made up of Instagram-ready installations designed to help people spark happiness.
Sandy Baumgartner, the science centre’s CEO, said it’s the first exhibit the non-profit has curated in-house.
“The popularity was overwhelming,” she said. “It’s really given us that enthusiasm and confidence that we can create our own experiences and have them resonate so well in the community.”
Originally, JoyLab — which opened last June — was set to close around Thanksgiving, but given its success, Baumgartner noted they decided to expand and extend it until after the holiday season.
“We added a winter scene and we’ve added a few other elements, like we changed the lights in the infinite room from white lights to coloured lights — just a few tweaks to the experience,” she explained, noting they started with 12 vignettes and are ending with about 20.
According to Baumgartner, JoyLab was created to trigger two different conversations: One on what sparks happiness and another on whether our obsession with taking selfies is empowering or narcissistic.
When it debuted, she said there was an emphasis on whether the exhibit promoted narcissism; however, in the past few months, she argues it has turned out to do the opposite.
“One of the fun things is that you’re getting those generational experiences — so grandparents coming with their grandchildren and spending time in the space has really been quite fun to watch,” Baumgartner said. “Very rarely do you see somebody come by themselves; they’re coming with friends and they’re coming back with family, so it’s really been a social experience.”
Although the formal JoyLab exhibit closes to the public in Regina starting Monday, Baumgartner said it won’t be gone from the Saskatchewan Science Centre for long.
“This spring, we’ll be opening up a testing JoyLab room where we’ll be able to try out some different vignettes, so we can see what people like and test some of our ideas,” she explained, noting there will likely be pop-up JoyLab exhibits around the province over the next year as well.
Starting this summer, Baumgartner said they plan to continue the JoyLab experience by touring the exhibit in other science centres across Canada.
