BROKEN CITY LAB MANDATE

Broken City Lab is an artist-led interdisciplinary creative research group that tactically disrupts and engages the city, its communities, and its infrastructures to reimagine the potential for action in the collapsing post-industrial city of Windsor, Ontario.

The processes of Broken City Lab remain grounded in the lab’s observations and concerns about Windsor, as a city, as a community, and as a network of infrastructure, and aim to do two things: first, Broken City Lab works through interventionist tactics to adjust, critique, annotate, and re-imagine the city that we encounter; secondly, through these interventions, the lab seeks to educate, inspire, and facilitate a new way of viewing the potential for interacting with and in the city.

Broken City Lab’s creative activity is located at the intersection of social practice, performance, and activism. The lab attempts to generate a new dialogue surrounding public participation and community engagement in the creative process, with a focus on the city as both a research site and workspace. It is not about doing the work of the city’s officials, or social workers, or politicians; it is about finding new creative ways to address our concerns with the city, while recognizing that our concerns may be similar to those of other community members.

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BROKEN CITY LAB RESEARCHERS

	Justin A. Langlois (Research Director) Justin A. Langlois is an artist working in integrated media and social practice.  He has an MFA in Visual Arts and a BA (Hons) in Communication Studies from the University of Windsor. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is currently an instructor in the Department of Communication, Media, and Film at the University of Windsor and the Executive Director of the Arts Council Windsor & Region.
	Danielle Sabelli (Senior Research Fellow) Danielle Sabelli is a MA candidate in Communications and Social Justice at the University of Windsor. She immigrated to Windsor from Leamington Ontario. She hopes to stay in Windsor Ontario, (if Windsor will let her) to witness and aid in the revolución.
	Michelle Soulliere (Senior Research Fellow) Michelle Soulliere is a BFA student at University of Windsor. She has a strong heritage connected to the Windsor area and has always been motivated by her surroundings in the city. She draws her inspiration from the Detroit River and the things in it, biking, alleys and the things in them, trains, train tracks, metal boxes, dumpsters, spray paint, thrift stores, dancing and dance floors. Michelle works with the street, concrete, paint markers, spray paint, duct tape and photocopies in the form of time based, digital, performance and street art. She is currently conducting research around the Windsor area under the alias Citynoise.
	Joshua Babcock (Senior Research Fellow) Joshua Babcock is a multimedia visual artist, currently completing his Bachelor of Visual Arts degree at the University of Windsor, Ontario. Using an interest in human curiosity and emotion, Joshua creates works that relate to themes including, but not limited to environmental aesthetics, human traits in consumer products, death and its usage in marketing, societal violence, and biological process. With a particular interest in scientific illustration, he spends the majority of his time working with paint, ink, graphite, found objects, and photography. Joshua’s work is often a response, literally or figuratively, to the materials with which he works.
	Cristina Naccarato (Senior Research Fellow) Cristina Naccarato is an English student at the University of Windsor. She’s an avid photographer who is currently working on a personal project where she’s attempting to photograph and document her life for an entire year. She is also a  free-lance writer for The University of Windsor newspaper “The Lance,” editor/publisher of the collective creative writing magazine ”Generation,” and a member of the campus radio station CJAM and their Women’s Radio Collective.  She keeps an up-to-date blog entitled, ”Wake-Up-Grrl“ about feminist issues, and fem-related events happening within Windsor and Detroit.
	Rosina Riccardo (Junior Research Fellow) Rosina Riccardo is currently working towards her Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Visual Arts at the University of Windsor. She is constantly striving to grow as an artist through various endevours and mediums the city has to offer. As well, she is particularly fascinated with things relating to popular culture, Canadian music and history.
	Steven Leyden Cochrane (Adjunct Research Fellow) Steven Leyden Cochrane is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Tampa, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2006 and his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Windsor in 2009. Through his practice he seeks to challenge received understandings of art objects as repositories of meaning and vehicles for personal expression.
	Immony Men (Adjunct Research Fellow) Immony Men is a college graduate from the Dawson Cinema and Communication and is a graduate from the Concordia University: Interdisciplinary Studies Program. He is currently completing his MFA at the University of Windsor in Visual Arts.
	Michael Ngo (Adjunct Research Fellow) Michael Ngo is a BFA student at the Lebel School of Arts at the University of Windsor. He specializes in digital media, photography, installation and exploring space. He enjoys the company of cats and friends, long bike rides, coffeeshops and live music. He aspires to make at least one person smile once a day.