Skills For Good(s) With Rod Strickland
Last night at 411 Pelissier, the first instalment of Skills for Good(s) began with one of our favourite skill-filled friends, Rod Strickland. This series of skill share sessions will be hosted by Lucy and I every other Tuesday out of Civic Space. Our hopes are that it opens up the floor for discussion on an array of skills [...]
![Not exhaustive, nor complete, this map is a work-in-progress, documenting a community in-transition. For one afternoon in February 2010, we gathered together with a group of community members to create two distinct lists: Sites of Apology and Sites of Hope. The locations identified as part of these two lists were noted as being places for which [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_3444-150x150.jpg "Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope: the Map")
![Now that Intersession is done, we’ve finally been able to put that downtown space to some use. Cristina and I spent the better part of the day in the space, using it basically as an office, but we’ll be there at least one more day this week and potentially one day on the weekend picking [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/IMG_0583-150x150.jpg "Being Productive Again: Day 1")
![Meeting outside is the greatest. There’s talk of building some kind of mobile table / bistro to make this possible in other locations, but I suppose that’s further down on the to-do list. For now, we’re immersed in bringing together research and inventions around our How to Forget the Border Completely project to pull into [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_9987-150x150.jpg "Working at & on (forgetting) the Border, Next Week is Show & Tell")
![We’ve noted before that we’re working on a proposal for CAFKA, as we’re interested in the border between Kitchener and Waterloo. Though certainly every place is bordered with another, it’s the kind of K-W relationship that intrigues us, as we’re wondering about the potential possibilities in thinking about Windsor and Detroit as D-W. We’re wondering about examining [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/IMG_8680-ps-150x150.jpg "Thinking About Borders")
![We’re gearing up for Homework. It’s going to be fun and you should really consider attending! There’s a few spots left. If you do decide to attend, you can look forward to receiving one of these fine sketchbooks. Designed by Liisa Salonen, the sketchbooks are recovered paper sample books, rewrapped. They still need to be stamped, maybe [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMG_4871-150x150.jpg "Homework Prep! Resampled Notebooks")
![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’re in the preparation stages for an upcoming project called Civic Maintenance. The project will be based around the writing and distributing of a thousand letters (give or take) to residents of Windsor, thanking them for staying in the city, or contributing to it, or somehow having an impact on it, or maybe all of [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wpid19626-IMG_1200-150x150.jpg "Mailbox Prototypes and Organizational Systems for Civic Maintenance")
![As part of FAM Fest 09, we did a projection performance on the roof of Metro Cleaners accessed from Empire Lounge in downtown Windsor. For about an hour and a half, we presented our 100 Ways to Save the City and then asked for ideas from the folks on the ground, at Phog, and on the Twitterverse. After the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_1761-150x150.jpg "100 Ways to Save the City Projection")
![We’ve updated our imaginary campaign post to reflect some recent (positive) changes: Our projects try to work around the realities that we encounter in Windsor on a daily basis. We address these realities creatively, and so the ways in which we address them don’t always translate to solutions. We usually try to suggest the change [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_2877-3-150x150.jpg "An Imaginary Platform: 2010 Municipal Elections in Windsor")
![Physical civic improvements are an important step for Windsor. Our gateways, if you’re unfamiliar with the city, are a bit lack-luster at present. Where gateways do exist, the markers are underdeveloped, poorly executed, and are the kind of “this could literally be anywhere” design strategy. Why do gateways matter? Physically and visually defining space is [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gatewayDay-150x150.jpg "This Probably Isn’t Helping: When Gateways Fail")
![300′ of bright orange flagging tape, $5.97 + tax. It’s fairly thin, but should be really easy to work with. We might have to double it up to make it visible on the fence, that is, double the width of each letter. We should test at Lebel later this week, or maybe on Monday before [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_1697-150x150.jpg "Flagging Tape")
![Last night was the opening for a couple of shows connected to the Parking Garage on the corner of Pelissier and Park, including our project, Broken City Lab: A Consultancy. Danielle, Steven, Leesa, and I spent the better part of the afternoon (attempting to dodge the rain) in the space setting up. Along with this [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/img_2636-web-150x150.jpg "A Consultancy Installed")
![I haven’t posted for a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on the ongoing Arduino + LCD project, which is moving along towards connecting external data to be displayed on the LCD screen. The last bit of time I’ve put into the project has been focused on printing text to the LCD [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/IMG_8060-150x150.jpg "Working on the PHP Backend of the Arduino + LCD Project")
![Tuesday felt like the first day back from the holidays should. We were tired, well Josh and I were tired, we were motivated and anxious to get to work, and we got a lot done. It was a very great way to start the new year! We spent the better part of the morning and [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_62542-150x150.jpg "Phone Calls and Budgets – Tuesday Morning Productivity Extravaganza")