Broken City Lab- a collaborative of urban disrupters

Broken City Lab is an artist collective based in Windsor, Ontario, a post-industrial city in decline. The artists in the collaborative group are interested in engaging the community and city in projects that aim to disrupt, intervene, and call people to action in their city. They provide frequent updates on their blog as they develop their process, letting the audience see the intimate details of their creative process. The work produced by Broken City Lab covers a really broad range of material that we have talked about throughout the semester. They question and challenge the infrastructure of their city and relate it to history and other cities in crisis, especially their neighbor, Detroit.

Their project “We’re In This Together” is an homage to Detroit that gives a voice to the infrastructure of the city. The project establishes a certain kind of partnership and respect for the other city, relating their histories and recognizing the human element within the planned city.

Projection facing Detroit from Windsor, Ontario

The projection can be seen from Detroit. Here is a video of the same message in a different form:

Their dedication to Detroit is seen in this video homage to Detroit:

This video is SO reminiscent of the Detroit superbowl ad… it makes a lot of references to the hardworking and diverse people, Motor City, and the imagery is also easily comparable. It represents Detroit in a respectful light that asserts it is a culturally autonomous place incomparable to any other American city.

Broken City Labs have done a number of projects that involve urban intervention.

The message is often straight forward, such as in “Make This Better”. The bright, bold lettering calls attention ignored areas of the city, not only by city planners but pedestrians too. Why isn’t the area being used for something? It is wasted space and the artists have attempted to call out city planners by demanding it be made better. As we have talked about, it isn’t just city planners, though. Pedestrians have the the ability to change unused areas, too, granted they have the agency to do so.

This is their most recent project and it is ongoing.

A walk around downtown Windsor with 100 close friends, gaining access to a variety of closed / vacant / underused spaces to re-imagine what’s possible. One day, we’ll be neighbours in these spaces, and we’ll look back and say, “remember that walk we took with all those people on that really cold and rainy night…”

Here this group of collaborators did have agency in an attempt to rethink the function and possibilities in underused places in their city. This gets to the core of the mission of this collaborative… they are looking for ways to make their city better, perhaps change its direction, and start to prosper again.

Link to their website with a full list of past projects! http://www.brokencitylab.org/