History
Industrial Parks Collective was formed in 2015 as an interdisciplinary and collaborative arts practice that included visual arts, music, and film. Earlier projects included audiovisual installations and films such as Holocene (ThirdShift festival, Saint John, 2015), and Homeless (ThirdShift festival, Saint John, 2017) and grew to include group audiovisual festivals such as Neural (Saint John, 2017) and Synaptic (Saint John, 2018).
Industrial Parks Collective was incorporated in 2020 to meet a growing need in the community for networking and support for artists and creative professionals. In the following year, the organization diversified further with the production of its first TV series (Kitchen Talk, Bell Fibe TV1), with a focus on social issues in the Saint John area, and began offering professional creative services in design, video, and photography.
With a renewed mandate to help artists and creative professionals to accomplish their personal goals and find paid work, they completed the release of an EP (Kaya Sleep, Arm’s Length, 2022), secured funding for a research project to help local creatives find studio space (Creative Spaces Project, 2022), produced a TV docuseries for local, emerging musicians in New Brunswick (Anthems and Acres, Fibe TV1, 2022), and organized an arts and culture festival for diverse and emerging artists (GLOW Festival, 2022).
In July 2024, Industrial Parks opened the Yellow Door Studio, an artist-run centre with 3500 square feet of private and shared studio space and supporting facilities.
Our Team
Raven Blue (he/him)
Executive Director
A longtime resident, organizer, and activist in Saint John, Raven has been making experimental films and music from an early age and has a devoted affinity for taking photographs in his own neighborhoods. Raven brings a background of 25 years in music, film, design, and community arts programming.
Jeff Cook (he/him)
Board Member
Jeff is a musician, mentor, journalist, with multiple contributions to the local music scene, Jeff leads an anarchist open mic and mentors youth in music at the Teen Resource Centre
Marc Gosselin (he/him)
Treasurer
Marc has been in the entertainment business for over 30 years working in production. His extensive experience covers a wide spectrum of work, including instructing recording arts in post-secondary, studio production, live audio mixing, broadcast production, touring director and most recently video production/editing.
Don Higgins (he/him)
Vice-President
Don is a thought leader and innovation strategist with a diverse background in science, law, technology, communications, social media, manufacturing, broadcasting, human resources, and leadership. In his recent roles, Don led initiatives to make the delivery of justice services more straightforward, outcomes-focused and accessible for all, by working to better understand the needs of the broader community and in particular those communities which are especially vulnerable—the underserved indigenous, newcomer, diversity and neuro-divergent communities, as well as isolated persons.