Save A City
At Windsor’s riverfront, SAVE A CITY, installed this afternoon. We opted out of using monofilament to hang the blocks of ice because there was a nice snowbank already there, and probably the last thing the Detroit River needs is more garbage in it. I’ll post some photos of the process of making these soon (definitely before the weather gets too warm).
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![Tonight was the final night of this suite of Cross-Border Communication. We sent another set of messages to Detroit, and hopefully there were some receivers across the river, as I got to talk about the project on WDET’s Detroit Today earlier in the afternoon. Given the winterish weather that’s setting in, we’re almost certainly done [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_4080-150x150.jpg "Cross-Border Communication: Want to Be Friends? (and other things we needed to say)")
![Thursday night was a night of decisions and tests. We’ve spent the last couple of weeks just trying to get caught up generally with projects and Thursday marked the beginning of the deciding how to start wrapping up How to Forget the Border Completely and what direction to move in to make some more progress on [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/IMG_9596-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: April 21, 2011 (making decisions)")
![We met last night and started our list of 100 Ways to Save the City for our projection on Saturday night as part of FAM Fest. We’re also spent some time putting together a rough schedule for 2009 Micro-Residencies, which will likely start in November. If you’ve thought about applying, but haven’t yet, now would [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_5311-sm-150x150.jpg "Planning Our Projection for FAM Fest")
![It was Monday night and Karlyn’s Birthday, so Hiba and Kevin brought a fun cake. Other things happened as well, and strangely, or maybe expectedly, now that the semester’s done and since we didn’t meet at the very end of the week, we had a marathon five hour meeting. It was so great!!! We had [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/IMG_9446-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: April 11, 2011 (oh, the logistics)")
![We got up early and headed down to the EC Row pedestrian overpass between the Dominion and Huron Church exits to install YOU ARE AMAZING! It’s hard to describe what it felt like to do this—taking on this project gave us all a genuine excitement about participating in changing a part of Windsor and the way [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/img_1471-150x150.jpg "Installing YOU ARE AMAZING")
![As part of a Canada Council for the Arts Inter-Arts Research and Creation grant I received, I will be documenting my work on the project through here, as I anticipate it will cross over into other projects we work on and came out of past projects we’ve completed. This project comes out of Broken City [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_1669-sm-150x150.jpg "Starting New Projects: Researching the Basics of Arduino + LCDs")
![HOMEWORK: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices is four-day residency, two-day conference, and collaboratively-written publication aimed at generating conversation around the following: alternative infrastructures, radical collaboration, social practice, art implicated in social change, neighbourhood-level activities, city-wide imaginations, site-specific curiosities, tactical resistance, new models for art education and research. Facilitated by Broken City Lab, HOMEWORK calls on artists, scholars, writers, thinkers, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/register1-150x150.jpg "Attending Homework is Free!")
![Another day spent at 406 Pelissier. Working with these plastic bags is really time consuming, but it will be worth it. The projects we have in mind are taking longer than we may have initially aniticipated, but that’s been the case with everything we’ve ever done. The banner is growing steadily, but we’re hoping for [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_2868-150x150.jpg "Working on a Process: Plastic Bag Banners and Such")
![Thinking about a good collaborative weekend project, the idea of starting a reading list came up. I have a fair collection of books and blogs in my reader that touch on a number of things that seem pertinent to Broken City Lab, but I wondered what’s out there that I’m missing. I’ll make a quick [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_9092c-150x150.jpg "Reading List")
![We spent quite a while this evening trying to perfect our tea recipe and then brewing almost 20 litres of it, in preparation of the upcoming Dance Party. In the photo above, we were in the middle of trying to figure out the best way to funnel the pots of tea into our reused (and cleaned) [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/Figuring-out-how-to-make-tea-for-the-upcoming-Dance-Party-150x150.jpg "Tea Time")
![Over the past couple of months, we’ve been working on making blocks of ice with letters and text embedded in them to create temporary street art. I think this idea came out of working with wheat paste, realizing the enjoyment of working in public spaces, and wanting to continue to work throughout the winter. I [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2448-150x150.jpg "How to: Text on Ice")
![Friday afternoon turned out to be more productive than I thought it would. We finished embedding all the magnets we have, which means we have 25 planters either done or drying and ended up with 3 installed on various surfaces to see if they survive the rain this weekend. If they turn out, I’ll order [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_9731-150x150.jpg "New Magnetic Planters Field Test")
![We made a lot of progress tonight, not only getting a considerable way through the first coat of red paint, but also testing a variety of techniques for applying the retroreflective glass beads! We also got to spend some time talking through how we’ll be temporarily installing the letters in a variety of spaces. We [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG_4441-150x150.jpg "Red Paint & Testing Glass Beads")
![Friday was the last open house for SRSI. Norman Eberstein read some of his log entries written during his job, Emily made some amazing snacks for us, Kero busted out his Lemur, and Laura did another payphone intervention. Norman was feeling not quite himself on Friday morning when he came in. He got his nose [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC_0873-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 29: It’s The Last Friday")
![We had another great Friday night meeting, even though Josh was sick, and even though we underestimated two things. First, we struggled again thinking through this second residency/conference idea, and the letters took way longer than anticipated to papier mâché. At any rate, with the autumn weather firmly setting in, it’s looking like we’ll be [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_3581-150x150.jpg "Getting Closer Every Week: Big Letters and New Titles")
![The details: Sunday, January 24, 2010 (8pm) at Phog Lounge (157 University Ave W, Windsor) As part of the Broken City Lab: Save the City project, Broken City Lab researchers will facilitate a community workshop to brainstorm, uncover, and share personal histories of Windsor, inviting a range of community members to participate in the process. The workshop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/BCL-STC-Jan-5x7-front-outlines-1024-150x150.jpg "Save the City: Listen to the City")
![It was a bit of a quiet Sunday, but things were still happening down at SRSI. In particular, Julie and Jefferson were hard at work all day, preparing their project, “The Peoples Museum & Fabulations de Windsor.” Above, and in between visits from some neighbours and friends, Julie preps a large piece of paper for [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_9890-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 3: Quiet Sunday, but things were still happening")
![On Day 3 of our ATTC Calgary with Truck Gallery’s CAMPER Urban Discovery project, it rained, and so we planned. We planned and discussed and reviewed some of the answers we had received from our activities on Day 2 — glimpses of the state of Calgary, from a ground-level perspective. For Day 4, we had to condense our planned events into [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IMG_38951-150x150.jpg "ATTC Calgary Day 3 & 4: the Tales & Timelines of a City")
![Sorry — it’s late, this documentation is rushed, but I just received a few copies of Public, issue 41, Gardens, edited by Erin Despard and Monika Kin Gagnon, which features our Removable Garden project on the cover, and as a nice spread inside! We wrote the text, which outlines some of process and ideas behind the research developing [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/public1-150x150.jpg "Public 41: Gardens")
![Our project for the 2011 Windsor Biennial, Alive & Well, was created with the hope that it would be captured on Google Maps to make a monument or announcement of sorts to the rest of the world about Windsor as we near the end of the year and ahead of being torn up for the new Aquatic [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/aliveandWellscreenshot-2-150x150.jpg "“Alive & Well” viewable on Google Maps")
looks beautiful. i can’t wait till spring though when it will be easier to get around and do more creative things. glad i could help out tonight for once too instead of just taking photos.
thanks Darren, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out too. also glad you got in on some soldering… it’s awesome to see so much activity happening!
looks fantastic!
Wonderful. I hope you’ll be visiting and photographing the piece over the weekend as the weather warms up and then freezes again. It’ll be interesting to see the words disappear as the ice becomes cloudy and then reappear again as it refreezes.
It wouldn’t be invisible, but for times when the ice needs to be tied on, jute or sisal would at least be biodegradable. Perhaps it could be frozen right into the back of the block so that it doesn’t show on the front? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all of those millions of plastic zip ties that are used once and discarded.
Oohhhh, really good idea with using something biodegradable. We’ve tried to brainstorm before ways to embed a material into the ice as it freezes to make it easier to hang. Because of the silicon tray it freezes in, It’s tough to get anything deeply embedded like that… but I think it could probably work to slowly layer ice on the back, with something like jute or sisal below it, so that it doesn’t have to be in there from the beginning, but can be added later.
I’ll be out of town this weekend, but if anyone is down by the river, this is around Askin, or maybe a little east of that, let me know how it holds up.
i’m going to ride by on my bike today justin and see if it’s still there. leaving now to ride downtown
hi justin, i rode by on my bike and took more photos. it was still just as you left it. : )
not sure if that will show up… took it while checking out your work today on my bike.
Wow, this really turned out well! And perfect timing. It got COLD.
Any word on if it’s still there, unvandalized?
I might try to check it out tomorrow… with my fingers crossed. It likely won’t last the weekend, it’s going to be above freezing, right?
I’d like to do more of this, but not sure if it’s going to dip below freezing for a long enough time in the next few weeks to make it worthwhile…
check out my site tom. i took a photo of it today
I already saw that photo Mr. D.
Thanks.