Auricle is a community-rooted listening network.
Everyday people collect and share real stories about what matters most.
We’re everyday listeners across Canada who help collect stories from their communities, so those voices are actually heard.
Through initiating conversations, recording every day moments with city residents, and hosting story sharing events, we’re interested in the many ways people seek and find wellbeing, and what helps or hinders their sense of connection.
Currently listening in:
Currently listening in:
We’re currently hosting community listening activations with our partner Central City Foundation in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, while continuing to evolve Auricle as a model that can travel across neighbourhoods, cities, and contexts.
FEB
2026
How Auricle works
Auricle partners with organizations seeking street-level insight into lived experience of place, using a three-part cycle to listen deeply, reflect together, and share back with the community.
Stage 1
Recruiting Local Listeners
We invite and train community members to become paid Local Listeners: people who reflect the community or neighbourhood and are comfortable starting conversations and listening deeply.
We’re
currently
in this stage
Stage 2
Gathering
Stories
Local Listeners host pop-ups and conversations in everyday spaces, inviting people to share stories about what matters to them.
Stage 3
Sharing and making sense of stories
Stories are returned to the community through Knowsy Fest — a public gathering where people can encounter stories, notice patterns, and reflect together — alongside a publicly accessible online dashboard..
Listening
Partnerships
In 2021, we partnered with the City of Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellbeing Initiative to test Auricle in their Alberta Avenue neighbourhood.
In 2023, Auricle started working with Edmonton’s Transit Service to explore the relationship between wellbeing, safety, and transit.
In 2025, we deepened our engagement with Edmonton’s Transit Service and broadened the stories we tell about place.
In 2026, we’ve teamed up with Central City Foundation to learn about how people experience connection and disconnection in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, to inform a vision for the future.
Why Do We Listen?
Our hope is that by better understanding what wellbeing looks and feels like to people, by listening with care and reverence, and by sharing stories back to the community, we can:
1. strengthen local relationships and local ownership over data
2. spark richer public conversations, and
3. enable communities to better direct resources and supports.
Explore the stories and data
from our last round
Explore our public dashboard
All the data we collected from 2025 on one page. See what trends and insights you might discover.
See a snippet of stories
We created storybook to feature a beautiful selection of stories from our database.
Look at our story collector
Take a look at the tool we used to collect stories around three transit stations. Interested in still sharing a story? Follow the prompts to share your experience.
Let’s stay
in touch
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