The Creation of Place in Abandoned Railway Cuts in Windsor: 1/4 Intro

Lee Rodney teaches one of the best courses at the University of Windsor, Border Culture. I took the course in the fall of 2010 and wrote a book: The Creation of Place in Abandoned Railway Cuts in Windsor.

The book serves as documentation and comparative analysis of three specific forgotten spaces in downtown Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Each of these are former sites of railway lines that ran across the Detroit River into Michigan at the height of industrialization in the first quarter of the twentieth century, but are now closed up dead ends and dead zones, unlit at night and undetectable from street view due to their below street level geography.

These spaces have a transient quality, as people exist in them only while passing through, usually as quickly as they can in order to reach a safer location. The contents of this book are based on my own personal experience in and around these spaces as a young adult white female artist, including historical research on the areas as well as references from multiple disciplines including activism, art, urban planning, geography, design, visual culture, gender and feminist studies. The invisible borders embedded within the fabric of these hidden, forgotten underused and misused spaces is examined.

Over the course of the next month, I will be posting chapters of the book with images on a weekly basis. However, I would like to introduce the book by providing some info and context around what I was reading prior to and during the research phase of this project.

So, without further adieu, a few books that informed my book:

Continue reading “The Creation of Place in Abandoned Railway Cuts in Windsor: 1/4 Intro”

Evolve or Die: CMA Conference

I’ll be heading up to London, Ontario on Thursday, April 14 to speak on a panel with some incredible people as part of the Canadian Museum Association’s Annual Conference, appropriately titled, Evolve or Die!. I’m pumped to get to reconnect with Andrew Hunter and Andrew Lochhead, and to finally meet Yael Filipovic. Not familiar with these folks? You should be.

The details:

The Social, Political, and Local: The Power of Place

Moderator: Yael Filipovic, Foreman Art Gallery, Bishop’s University
Panelists:Andrew Hunter, Dodolab & Proboscis; Justin Langlois, Broken City Lab, Andrew Lochhead, Workers Arts and Heritage Center

Embracing new roles, forging new relationships, and charting new territory on the notion of place has proven to facilitate new kinds of relationships with communities that allow for increasingly socially responsible work within our institutions. Through a dialogue that explores the critical relationships, the panelists have taken with the notion of place, this discussion will engage in unpacking the politics at play in work engaged with local spaces, communities, and histories and how this plays a part in a broader role we may be asked to play as facilitators of social change at local and regional levels.

And, afterwards, we’ll be meeting with some folks in London who are working to make that city better — will be a great day!