Save the City: Listen to the City
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 will begin with a discussion about the importance in personal histories alongside official histories of a city, and then lead to the opportunity for community participants to share their own stories about Windsor.
Throughout this part of workshop, we are going to help you to record one another’s stories on portable MP3 audio recorders and encourage the retelling of stories throughout the workshop. After the workshop, the recorded audio stories will be uploaded to the Broken City Lab website and offered for streaming and downloading. As well, a copy of the edited collection of the stories will be donated to the Windsor Archives.
We think that the best way to start understanding this city is to hear the stories from the people who live here.
With that in mind, we’re going to ask you two questions about the city:
What brought you here? and Why are you still here?
See you on the 24th!!!!
Broken City Lab: Save the City is generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council.
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Wow, this project is shocking in it’s poignancy. These activities couldn’t have come at a better time.
Thanks Stephen! Hope to see you on the 24th!!!
Question, is the save the city initiative based on a model from another city that can be referred to as an example?
Otherwise, congrats on the initiative, everywhere I turn, I find that the answer to so many questions is the importance of telling our stories. We’ve just begun to realize this and I’m hoping some very cool announcements that may compliment your initiative quite nicely.
I know the business aspect is off topic but storytelling is the same strategy organizations that represent local independent businesses advocate. Organizations like BALLE (http://www.livingeconomies.org) and AMIBA (www.amiba.net) say it will also save our economy.
Thank you BCL
Hi Mark,
Thank you for the congrats, and I hope we’ll get to see you out for (at least) one of the events! Storytelling can be incredibly powerful to both understand one another and, I really think, understand ourselves and how we think about / define / and interact with place and locality.
Thanks for the links, I think you’re completely right, that a lot of the things that can make storytelling on an individual or collective level makes a lot of sense for local businesses as well — and it’s true, any business, gallery, park, band, book, or restaurant that I hear about comes with a story about how someone else encountered it in the first place, and it’s that kind of connection that can be a way into something new for someone else.
Oh, also, this project isn’t based on any kind of model per se, but certainly takes a number of other art projects as reference points. We really just looked at what we want to know and discover and define about this city and framed these events around it.
I hope I can make it for these, especially in May, but if I’m stuck in Toronto I’ll send my input.
This is so inspired. Keep it up.
Although the widespread focus is on every and anyone who loves/hates the city (us all), I’m so glad that this is born out of an artistic endeavor.
I really think that artists are the right people to be asking because we are the culture generators in our cities. We have the gift, community, and responsibility to create a detailed visual image of what is possible. We can strongly inspire or seriously dishearten our audience with our messages and need to be very aware of the impact we can have.
BCL has made giving a shit about Windsor a youthful, intelligent and conceptual ongoing project that continues to gain momentum and I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Just wanted to say that I’m proud.
Keep close,
Sara
Sara,
Thank you so much for your lovely note! I sincerely hope your schedule allows you to attend one of these upcoming events, but if not, yes, please send your input…
Your comment made my week.