A 1W3KND Update
We’re almost halfway through the 1W3KND Writing Residencies and the pile of writing is growing! Here’s an update on the last four residents. Mike DiRisio and Nathan Stevens collaborated through the weekend and left us with an awesome collection of notes, brainstorms, fun posters, and essays. Above: one of their posters. Another great surprise: a series [...]
Mailbox Prototypes and Organizational Systems for Civic Maintenance
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 [...]
IN STORE: DEAR INDIAN ROAD
Dear Indian Road is near the very top of my list of favourites from Daragh Sankey‘s nearly complete documentary series on our Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation project. It’s kind of unreal to think about the things that have changed (and haven’t) around Indian Road, the border crossing, and the fallout from this ongoing political [...]
Planning for Civic Maintenance
While some of us were away last week in North Bay, Sara and Kevin caught up to talk through some ideas around the next project we’ll be hosting out of CIVIC SPACE. It was an excellent welcome home to walk into a wall of notes from their conversation. Anxious to keep talking through these ideas [...]
This is Happening: Installing our sign at CIVIC SPACE
Props to Hiba for wrapping up what we started last night. Most time spent on the ladder.
12-06-20 4:39:10 PM
The day before our launch. Rosina paints with Kiki. The table of letters, ever-changing as each layer dries. The letters that remain to be painted as of this afternoon. Josh and Kevin’s project for the day… Sara and Rosina headed out to do a bunch of short installs and photograph them. The single-use camera Hiba [...]
Installing the sign for CIVIC SPACE, take 1
Last night, Hiba, Sara, and Justin tackled some initial planning for the installation of the CIVIC SPACE / Letter Library sign. The Letter Library idea came out of trying to think through how we might make our own sign for the space, so it’s really great to finally see the letters going up. Hiba got on the [...]
Letter Library Card & Stamp Test, Example, etc.
From yesterday afternoon — testing the stamp that Rosina set up and the cards we just got back from the printers. We also got a fun package from Hamilton Artist Inc. that included some of the “questionnaires” we did from the last art crawl. These will eventually make their way into our forthcoming publication. Detail, [...]
Nothing like being thorough: how we make decisions, slowly
Last night Hiba, Danielle and I met to do some more prep work on the letters for the Letter Library launch on June 21st. We painted another test letter E a different shade of grey and started to populate a wall with some more of the tests. It was excellent to see more than a [...]
Grey Paint Test, Tattoos, and Talk of Homework II
This afternoon at CIVIC SPACE started out with a video chat with Jason Sturgill from Portland about a really awesome project we’ll be collaborating with him on in the spring of next year. There is also talk of Homework II happening this fall…stayed tuned for more info on this. Also, our Akimbo ad was released [...]
![Text In-Transit is a Broken City Lab project where we’re partnering with Transit Windsor to install a number of text-based creative works amongst the ads in the headspace on buses. We’re looking for submissions of short statements, poems, and stories from anyone in the city that will help to change the conversation about Windsor!!! *** Please send your submission(s) [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/textintransit-callforsubmissions-bg-150x150.jpg "Text In-Transit: Call For Submissions")
![Based on a conversation at our last meeting on Thursday morning, I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to start on some new projects in January focused back on Windsor. Seeing at this mason jar was at the core of our conversation, it seemed like a good idea to post it on here, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/masonJar-150x150.jpg "A Visual Reference for a New Year Project")
![“CreateHere works with one guiding principle in mind: we love our city for what it is, has been and could become.” The non-profit organization started in 2007 and does things like provide over $300,000 in artists grants to area creatives, connecting talented artists to homes in Chattanooga, and asking everyone in their city what they [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/web_oct5-createhere-150x150.jpg "Micro-Residency #1: CreateHere.org")
![Today was another great, amazingly fun and productive day in 406 Pelissier! We did a lot of material tests, figured out some more details on our book, met some new people, and generally enjoyed having a dedicated workspace. It’s going to be very hard to give up this space. The day started by spreading out [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/IMG_0742-150x150.jpg "Being Productive Again: Day 2")
![On Monday, Norman Eberstein patrolled the alley, The Department of Unusual Certainties decorated their office and did some brainstorming, Thea Jones and Stephen Surlin moved in. Simon’s return to Windsor brought a lot of activity to the back of 410, where Chris had been sitting at his desk for a few days prior. The workspace [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0783-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 11: Norman’s Crush and Getting Organized")
![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")
![Last night Eric Boucher came to visit myself and my grandma Margaret Mongeau to interview her for Eric’s Micro-Residency with BCL. Each fellow of BCL will be introducing Eric to a person whom he has never met. Eric then will be interviewing each person exclusively on the topic of Windsor. Eric`s interview with my grandma [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/DSC01223-150x150.jpg "Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 1/5")
![We’ve been talking about picking up on some of the ideas we put together for the OPEN panel discussion from earlier in the month, and it seemed like posters were a natural fit. Given the text statements that we made to address the an idea of economies and creative practice that served as the backdrop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/wpid20573-IMG_1771-150x150.jpg "Fail to Meet Expectations: Vinyl on Paint Posters")
![The day before our launch. Rosina paints with Kiki. The table of letters, ever-changing as each layer dries. The letters that remain to be painted as of this afternoon. Josh and Kevin’s project for the day… Sara and Rosina headed out to do a bunch of short installs and photograph them. The single-use camera Hiba [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/wpid18548-IMG_0126-2-150x150.jpg "12-06-20 4:39:10 PM")
![We’re in North Bay for a residency in preparation of an upcoming exhibition. White Water Gallery is our gracious host (and for the first half of the day, our introduction to North Bay). Much of the day is on foot, with cameras. We record what we can about the city’s history and get a read [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid18855-MG_1327-150x150.jpg "Exploring North Bay (prep for Surviving North Bay)")
![Another day at BCL HQ and some more progress on this ongoing magnetic planters project. Michelle and I finished putting in the remainder of our magnets into our plastic bag planters, but there are still some more planters left over. So, with more rare-earth magnets now on the way, we’ll finish up the rest when [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_4798-150x150.jpg "Magnets Installed!")
![We’re back to Friday nights. Someone thought to move the tables outside. In the dimming light, we worked. Many things are on the task list. We’re starting to work on a publication of sorts for How to Forget the Border Completely. It’s been a really clarifying decision to pull the strands of research we’ve been working [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_9947-150x150.jpg "We’re outside around a table, together. It’s May. How to Forget the Border Completely.")
![I stopped by the Ecohouse today (where our collective studio is housed) to check out one of our new neighbours — The Border Bookmobile Winter Reading Room. Collected and curated by Border Bookmobile founder, Lee Rodney, the books assembled as part of the winter reading room are going to be incredible helpful for our upcoming [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_5136-150x150.jpg "Anxious to Explore the Border Bookmobile’s Winter Reading Room")
![For part 4 of Eric Boucher’s Micro-Residency, we trekked all the way out to Harrow to interview my good friend, and local musician, Derek Harrison. I met Derek way back in my first week of University and became friends very quickly. Since that first semester in Windsor, Derek has been leaving Windsor left and right, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/derek-150x150.jpg "Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 4/5")
![For our upcoming Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope event (a part of our ongoing Save the City project), we’ll be asking for your participation to help us come up with a list of those very things — the places around Windsor for which we need to apologize, and the places for which we [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_7327-150x150.jpg "Our Ribbons Have Arrived")
![From way away in Toronto, Cristina sends edits through the magic of Tracking Changes after some good old fashioned hand-written editing. I did the same while waiting for the flight back to Detroit. We’re getting so excited about this project, we’ll have to figure out a way to pull it off … funding or no [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_0203-sm-150x150.jpg "Editing Over Distances")