Recap of the Letter Library Opening Event!
It’s been an incredible few weeks prepping for the launch of CIVIC SPACE and the Letter Library. Huge props to everyone who helped out, especially Kiki Athanassiadis & Lucy Howe! There’s a few hundred letters strewn about the space, waiting for you to takeout and caption the city. Stop by over the next few weeks — [...]
Announcing CIVIC SPACE (Community Innovation through Vital Interactions & Collaborations)
For more information on CIVIC SPACE and its programming: please visit civicspace.info. We’re incredibly excited to announce a new initiative that will become the centre of our focus for the next two years. CIVIC SPACE (Community Innovation through Vital Interaction & Collaboration Space) will launch on Thursday, June 21st at 411 Pelissier Street in downtown Windsor. Supported by [...]
![Last night Laura went out to install some PL1999 payphones, Kyle Bishop of Andand Collective arrives, and Josh does some more inventions. Kyle came down from Waterloo to start developing his Amalgamation of Windsor and Waterloo into the city of W. He will be hitting the streets campaigning with a team of recruiters later on [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/P1040651-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 23: Payphone Interventions")
![This is part of an ongoing set of one-question emails sent to people we know, or would like to get to know, about things that interest us and inform our collective practice. They’ll be featured on the site weekly, usually on Fridays. These questions are more about unfolding ideas than about the people we’re asking, but we do [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/suebellyank3-150x150.jpg "Sue Bell Yank on Art and Social Practice")
![We were only about half strong this week, but Josh, Rosina and I plowed ahead on the letters, this time focusing on just the front and back faces of the letters K, A, E, T, and I. We figured that since we had the projector set up anyways, it was worth doing as many faces as we [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_2985-150x150.jpg "Cardboard Letters Continued")
![On Thursday, Justin heads up the 401 for WHAT IS OUR URBAN IMAGINARY? Thursday | December 6 | 7 – 9pm at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Join the conversation as we consider how building design, urban spaces, and creative interventions in the city shape our collective experiences and imagination. Guest panelists include artist Justin Langlois, co-founder [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/KWAG-invite-Urban-Imaginary-150x150.jpg "Panel Discussion: What is our Urban Imaginary?")
![Despite the snow, the lethargy onset by exam schedules and year-end assignments, and a few core BCL folk leaving town for the summer, we had a great and productive meeting. We started going through the Text In-Transit submissions, continued working on our magnetic planters, worked on our Rhizome commission, brainstormed the idea of a book, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_3992-150x150.jpg "Planning for Spring")
![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")
![I saw an ad for CCA‘s Actions: What You Can Do With the City exhibition in the current issue of Border Crossings and the title got the best of me. I quickly flipped through the rest of the magazine, then went about exploring the Tools for Actions website. On the site, you’ll find 99 actions, ranging from [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/picture-7-150x150.png "Tools for Actions")
![A week ago, on an incredibly cold, rainy, snowy evening, we headed out on an exploration of Windsor’s downtown guided by a randomly assembled algorithm for Scavenge The City. We only made it through the first 20 steps (we stopped checking them off though), plus a couple others we skipped to by the end, but for [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/algorithm-original-used2-150x150.jpg "Scavenge the City Recap")
![As we gear up for the first event of our Save the City project, Listen to the City, we’re also planning ahead for the February event: Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope. Another Friday night at HQ trying our best to get as much work done as we could before heading out to the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_6648-150x150.jpg "Already Looking Ahead to February’s Save the City Event!")
![Over the weekend, I tested out different kinds of paint to use on this shower curtain-type material for an upcoming large banner project. First, I tried some heavy acrylic paint and spread it evenly three times in different thicknesses. The line with the most paint peeled easier, however, the line with the lightest coat did [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1-150x150.jpg "Preliminary Banner Tests- Paint on Plastic")
![Friday night was especially fun. With next week being our first research report for How to Forget the Border Completely, we basically spent the evening casually going over some preliminary research, planning out some new directions, and getting more acquainted with the collection of border books next door. Michelle brought a tourism Detroit magazine she [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_8505-150x150.jpg "Quality Time with Books & Imaginary Spaces")
![Broken City Lab is heading up to Peterborough, Ontario for all of next week (October 12 – 17, 2009) for an extended field trip to collaborate with Artspace for a series of community and inter-city research initiatives, workshops, and interventions to understand the city of Peterborough, its infrastructures, and its communities. We’ll be blogging extensively [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/peterboroughmap3-150x150.jpg "Extended Field Trip #001: Artspace in Peterborough")
![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")
![We’ve been quiet on the blog, but not because we haven’t been busy. I’ve been working away at the final touches for the maps for Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope, which while taking longer than I had anticipated, was well worth it. The map looks great, we’ll be posting it on here soon [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_3153-150x150.jpg "Mid-August: Maps, Writing & Cardboard")
![Last night Danielle and I went to the downtown Transit Windsor terminal to install the first five test panels we had printed for Text In-Transit. The panels read: everything is possible, YOU MADE MY DAY, YOU ARE THE CITY, YOU CHANGED EVERYTHING, and changing the world starts by changing this city. We had to install [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_9143-150x150.jpg "First 5 Text In-Transit Panels Installed")
![Paul writes with great news that the Max patch he’s been working on for our window installation project can now capture audio, upload it to a server and tweet a notification. We’re meeting on Wednesday to discuss the next steps and to plan workshops for the winter! Also, with Twitter, I spent a bus and [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012-12-08_00-12-49-150x150.png "Tech Update: Drift & Window Install + Twitter")
![Kevin and Josh ventured out with a single-use camera to test what the temporary installations would look like, as we continue to prep for Thursday’s launch of the Letter Library here at CIVIC SPACE. Also, film is fun. The letters look great and the photos aren’t too bad either. They definitely have a colder tone [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/43390001-150x150.jpg "Single-Use Camera Tests: Captioning the City")