All Tomorrow’s Problems take a short break this week. We’ll be back on Monday, April 8th at 7pm to tackle problems big and small. Come hang out with us.
Here are just a couple of examples of the things we’ve done recently in exploring how to bring people together to talk through their concerns with the future of this city.
See you next week.
Well, our strawberry-thyme-apple jam slow cooked overnight, but it’s now ready, and we’ve jarred it and added the labels from last night’s All Tomorrow’s Preserves workshop. Special thanks to Jen Delos Reyes for walking us through the wonders of jam making and Fallen Fruit for the tasty idea.
Next week, All Tomorrow’s Problems returns as normal, Monday @ 7pm.
And here’s our list of special ingredients that went into the jam (a list of problems collected from around the table).
We’re pleased to announce that TONIGHT, March 25th at 7pm, Jen Delos Reyes is teaming up with All Tomorrow’s Problems and this time we’re making jam. This idea came out of an exercise included in her current exhibition up at CIVIC SPACE, The Social Practice Workbook, wherein the Fallen Fruit collective suggested jam-making as a practice for changing the way you see the world (and making new friends along the way).
The All Tomorrow’s Preserves jam theme of the evening is as follows:
It’s About Thyme! Strawberry Jam!
We’re starting with a simple but delicious natural-pectin strawberry jam, made with fresh thyme and your loving hands. This thyme it’s personal, so bring your friends and come jam with us and talk about the ideas whosetime have come for the City of Windsor.
We have the ingredients covered, but if you’re attending, consider bringing along an apron or two! See you tonight, March 25th at 7pm!
Introducing: All Tomorrow’s Preserves, a special version of All Tomorrow’s Problems happening this Monday, March 25th at 7pm! (CIVIC SPACE, 411 Pelissier)
We’re pleased to announce that tomorrow, March 25th at 7pm, Jen Delos Reyes is teaming up with All Tomorrow’s Problems and this time we’re making jam. This idea came out of an exercise included in her current exhibition up at CIVIC SPACE, The Social Practice Workbook, wherein the Fallen Fruit collective suggested jam-making as a practice for changing the way you see the world (and making new friends along the way).
The All Tomorrow’s Preserves jam theme of the evening is as follows:
It’s About Thyme! Strawberry Jam!
We’re starting with a simple but delicious natural-pectin strawberry jam, made with fresh thyme and your loving hands. This thyme it’s personal, so bring your friends and come jam with us and talk about the ideas whose time have come for the City of Windsor.
We have the ingredients covered, but if you’re attending, consider bringing along an apron or two! See you Monday, March 25th at 7pm!
All Tomorrow’s Problems (ATP), a weekly Design Night focused on creative and speculative problem solving. ATP focuses on collaborative, Windsor-focused problem solving and project making, informed by weekly discussion and design nights. We’re looking for collaborative critical thinkers, problem solvers, and action-takers with an eye on the future of this city.
All Tomorrow’s Problems doesn’t aim to necessarily solve anything, but it takes up the position that we can’t wait for anyone else’s solutions either. Every Monday night, a group of people (artists, communicators, designers, academics, students, researchers, strangers, and just all-around passionate people) get together and try to spark conversations around the problems we’re encountering on an everyday basis and the long-term, large-scale potentials of them.
Those conversations are sometimes focused, while other times they’re rather sprawling. The work last night revolved around a decision to make a series of posters on a range of issues the group might continue to tackle at large. Nudges, adjustments, conversation starters were the general description we gave to the rationale behind the posters. The form was also constrained by these rules.
5-minutes to design and then we discuss.
The posters captured prompts and positions.
Some were interactive sketches.
Others a plan for a serial conversation.
Some riffed off of existing campaigns (CCS, talk to your kids about art).
Others attempted to claim new territory.
Fill-in-the-blanks.
Familiar interfaces.
Companion pieces.
Promises.
Sketches of thought patterns.
Most of the results at the end of the night.
Sketching ideas, but no commitments to production yet.
We used Letraset to typeset the posters.
Tanya and Veronica sorting through sheets of random fonts…
…there’s an immediate gratification to applying the letters one by one, as we all became designers for the evening.
Flip me and change Windsor for ever.
Randy working his green pen to annotate the grammar posters, with Phil’s notebook of ideas.
Dan’s ‘Take me to your neighbour’ idea.
Windsor, you are unpredictable.
Nicole working with a very heavy font.
More grammar, by Randy.
Great Windsor (forthcoming).
End of the evening.
Phil’s interactive poster, part 1.
Phil’s interactive poster, part 2.
You should come by next week. Not sure if we’re making posters or not, but you can be sure it’s going to to the best two-hours you’ll have spent on a Monday night in a while. As always, it’s free and open to all ages.
Four weeks into All Tomorrow’s Problems. We’re tackling lots of big, complex problems with big, eager imaginations. Interested in joining us? The next ATP is on Monday, November 12 at 7pm at CIVIC SPACE.
Last Monday’s topic, drawn from a conversation about the recent announcement of a 28-year-old mayoral candidate in Detroit, focused on creating platforms for a series of future mayoral candidates in Windsor. The series of imaginary candidates were dreamed up in 20-year increments — a set of 28-year-old mayors, 48-year-old mayors, and 68-year-old mayors. If they ran for the top seat in the city, what would they note as their vision for the city? Each week we ask a question like that, and each week we take a lot of notes and thanks to our super great studio assistant, Laura, all of these notes are being scanned — I think we’re around 200+ pages so far.
The night runs for a quick hour and a half or so. Dan reads off the platform written by Sam for the 28-year-old mayoral candidate, as Kiki listens in.
Across the table, Nicole and Veronica wait for their turn.
Some of the platforms were ambitious and impossible, others were pragmatic and measured. Each revealed an interesting set of assumptions we bring when considering other people’s attitudes and concerns. That being said, the 28-year-old platforms were certainly the most expansive, and probably expensive.
Left-over candy beans from Sam’s opening for her Civic Boredom project she completed with students from Forster.
Then, the 48-year-old mayoral candidate pledge. Above my notes on a campaign for the “middle of the road.”
Some of the most interesting ideas came from the conversations after everyone’s platform was read aloud. Above, the idea for a roving legal service that occupies Transit Windsor buses came up after discussing Sam’s requests for more legal services.
After we made our way through the three rounds, we spread out all the platforms and decided to each choose one pledge from each age bracket — that is, we could each select one pledge from the 28, 48, and 68 year old candidate.
Tough decisions.
Then, we compiled, Sam took notes to make the resulting super platform … it was totally fun to compile this and really generated a kind of discussion I know I haven’t had before, at least so explicitly, around not just a vision for the future of Windsor (and it’s problems), but really where competing visions may arise and what we can do with them.
1. Property tax break for everyone under 39. Buy a house and start a family in Windsor before you’re 40 and you pay no property tax.
2. Make Transit Windsor free by creating a small surcharge for users of EC Row — think of the 407 — but more reasonable.
3. Make a Windsor-specific currency.
4. Light rail for all surrounding municipalities.
5. Very much building off the above, make real efforts to strengthen relationships with surrounding areas.
6. Become and own the title of Canada’s official gateway. Don’t wait for anyone to officially designate this.
7. Ongoing and constant urban planning summit.
8. Tax breaks for small businesses with articulated and documented job creation strategies.
9. Fix transit.
10. Slow Down Sundays — close Riverside Drive every Sunday for pedestrians.
11. Distributed mini-museums (maybe screens and apps) for history of Windsor and area.
12. Heated sidewalks and bus stations.
And here they wait for your perusal. We’re undecided of where’s this is leading (maybe a book, an exhibition, a series of posters, a bunch of PSAs, a political party?), but mostly we just really think these conversations should be happening a lot more often around everyone’s tables. We have to make a conversation about a long-view of the future of this city and urgent priority. Maybe the next week will be to write a manifesto or something. The next edition of All Tomorrow’s Problems: Monday, November 12 at 7pm.
Starting on October 1st at 7pm, we’ll be running biweekly Design Nights focused on creative problem solving All Tomorrow’s Problems. Namely, we’re going to kick things off looking at the issues of youth retention in the city and gradually move on to other future-focused issues.
BCL’s Research Director, Justin, and a rotating co-host will guide the 2-hour studio, which will involve walks, discussions, rapid prototyping and wrap up with an exhibition in December.
Everyone is welcome, though space is limited. Please note that you should bring the following:
The dates to mark in your calendars:
And, to close, some quick answers to questions that may arise:
You know that the name of this is really similar to All Tomorrow’s Parties, right?
Yes, absolutely. We appreciate the tone of that event and thought it was a nice way to reference doing things at a different scale.
Do I have to be prepared to make art or design anything?
Think of this as a very loosely organized place to discuss and exercise your ideas on a specific topic. We may not actually make anything, but we will aim to creatively respond to the issue at hand.
Do I have to commit to attending every design night?
We hope that you’ll be able to attend as many of these nights as possible, but we understand schedules change. Come when you can. We’ll be trying to accommodate as many people as we can.