OCTOBER 13-15, 2011 Imagination Station Detroit
The Bookmobile took part in the weekend festivities that marked the culmination of Dare-Dare’s residency at the Imagination Station. This location, across from Roosevelt Park and Michigan Central Station, was a significant one for the Border Bookmobile as it is the exit point for the Windsor-Detroit train tunnel as well as the hotly debated Ambassador Bridge.
SEPTEMBER 22-23, 2011: Detroit: Global City Conference@Wayne State University
University conferences can be an alienating series of academic performances, however this was the first conference I’d been to in a long while that had a sense of urgency and interaction: Wayne State’s American Studies Program hosted an excellent weekend of discussion on Detroit’s past, future and place in the world. We set up the Bookmobile near the entrance to the Student Centre where the conference took place and talked to some fascinating people that shared stories of crossing into Canada from Detroit, both contemporary and historical.
JULY 22-29, 2011: Visual Fringe @ Artcite
For the 2011 Visual Fringe, Bookmobile Fellow Mike Marcon pulled together thousands of border related headlines from the last decade sourced from the Detroit Free Press, the Windsor Star and other Canadian papers. We installed a small portion of these headlines as a window display in Artcite’s front window from July 22-29. Divorced from their original media context, the headlines create an absurd summary of the commentary and events at the Windsor-Detroit border over the last decade, including a tragic jet-ski smuggling attempt. Our favorite headline, “Tiny but nasty beetle gets stopped at border” most likely refers to the Emerald Ash Borer (which is transported in firewood) but the headline conjures up more fanciful scenarios.
OCTOBER 19, 2010: Downtown Windsor Farmer’s Market
Windsor’s new farmer’s market is a loud and busy place, too loud for interviews as we were next to the busker’s tent. So we asked people to tell us about their relationship to Detroit by writing down some thoughts on sticky notes.
FALL 2010: Ambassador Park
We made a few visits to Ambassador Park on the Windsor waterfront last fall where we shared space with Terry’s Chip truck and people fishing in the Detroit River. An American woman who quickly stopped by was surprised to learn that Cadillac was French. She abruptly returned to her car yelling “Honey, did you know that Detroit was settled by the French?”
JULY 5- 9, 2010: Storefront Residency for Social Innovation
As a part of Broken City Lab’s Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation the Bookmobile set up at the corner of Park and Pelliser Streets from July 5-9th. Much of the week was spent interviewing people on the street, although the intense heat wave sent us inside by 1 pm each day. After being chased away from the intersection, we found a vacant store near the down from the corner of Park and Pelisser, a former newsstand that is now up for sale. It provided a handy alcove to set up a small selection of historical postcards (always popular) and books on Detroit and Windsor. To escape the intense heat and construction activity at Pelissier and Park, we left the van and retreated inside on 406 Pelissier Street to an air conditioned space.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2009: Open Corridor Festival
In conjunction with the Open Corridor Festival, the Border Bookmobile made its first appearance on the lawn of the University of Windsor’s School of Visual Arts. The Bookmobile was parked adjacent to Huron Church Road on what was once considered the world’s busiest international ‘trade corridor’ (or truck route if you prefer). Bookmobile readers were immersed in the noise of the Windsor border with six lanes of truck traffic traveling to and from the Ambassador Bridge. We had initially attempted to set up by the side of the road, but the wind from passing trucks blew the papers everywhere and nearly took the awning off the van, so we had to move everything twenty feet in from the busy road. The library travels in book bins which makes it relatively portable. Here’s a small sampling of the collection below. The titles will eventually be uploaded to the archives section.
