So, a lot has happened. Perhaps I won’t try and record everything here – I have 500 gigs of video that serves that purpose – but start talking about the overall feeling, as there are only a few short days left and then SRSI is over.

I haven’t mentioned The Department of Unusual Certainties in a manner that befits them. They are doing a project called Storefront Success Stories that is fairly fascinating – sort of an attempt to do urban design consultation properly, from the ground up. It’s a tricky project to pin down, in part because there is little visible about it yet (their process looks like regular office work mostly), and in part because the boys like to prevent easy explanations of things. But suffice it to say that I’ve had many fascinating conversations with them.

Lee Rodney has decamped her Border Bookmobile and set up a temporary position in the storefront. The contents of the bookmobile (besides the beautiful Chrysler Crimson seating) are a collection of books about Windsor, Detroit, borders, and more. Among the books was a volume of Shrinking Cities which Chris of The Department had mentioned to me, so I was excited to check it out of Lee’s library and get right into.

That’s the thing, those two words: shrinking cities. Cities that are getting smaller, but also cities plural. You might think at first it’s Detroit that’s this stunning historical phenomenon, then you might realize the problems are shared across the rust belt (Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore), and then you might realize the problem spans the goddamned world. East Germany after reunification was a particular hotbed, but it’s happened many times before and will happen again. Your city could shrink. Perhaps it already is. You can’t help but look at the outsourcing of manufacturing to China and the outsourcing of knowledge work to India as harbingers of a whole lot more shrinkage to come.

So it’s important to look at these cities, not just for the sake of the residents of these cities (good enough reason right there of course), but also for everyone else. It’s important to look at the cities as distinct places each with their own set of intersecting problems, but also to find out about the common issues, and about the solutions that have already been attempted. Some have worked. Some have not.

I’m not going to pretend to have any answers myself, so I want to switch gears and think about Windsor. It’s a strange place. We went on a bike ride last night and Michelle took us to the west side, past the ancient Sandwich Town, through slums, past a quick succession of naturalized field / apartment building / giant heaps of salt / school. It’s not a landscape as desolate as Detroit by a long shot, but it’s unlike anything in my Toronto world. It’s beautiful, lively, friendly, diverse. You get the impression that it is a tough town populated exclusively by grumpy auto workers. But the other day I enjoyed Pho at one of many Vietnamese restaurants as I listened to the enormous family seated near me speak Spanish. The pho was a bit greasy but very flavourful.

Originally my goals for this project were to complete a short documentary, post small segments online, daily blog posts, do workshops etc. etc. Best laid plans and suchlike. There is no way I will get this thing edited by the end of the residency in 10 days. The problem is I am shooting too much. You can’t just go in like a news crew and say, I need an interview and 5 minutes of b-roll and I’m out. A lot of the best stuff comes from hanging around with the camera, sort of like a hunter. You capture the little details, the surprises, you get to know people, and you earn trust. But it takes a ton of time. And there are always a few artists here simultaneously, so I’ve already missed a lot because I was shooting somewhere else.

So, revised goals. Some segments before the end of the project. Some blog posts. No finished film, that will come months later. Luckily Michelle will help with the editing, which is a huge, huge help.

What’s happened since saturday? It’s all a blur.

Sunday I mentioned, here’s Chris and Michelle making pasta.

Here’s Norman monitoring some dweeb filming his camera.

I followed Lea as she gathered plants for her project, the garden party. She goes up to houses with nice gardens and chats with the owners about Windsor, and asks if they’d like to contribute a plant. The plants get set up as a garden in the storefront. She invites the contributors to the garden party. Here’s her with Nadia, who is an amazing woman.

Went to the casino with Robin.

I gambled for the first time, on slots. I lost $9.90. I loved all the bizarre themes to the slot machines – there are Star Trek and Jaws machines, plus off brands like Pirates and Wild Panda. You can’t shoot anywhere near them though.

And you got to love the Walker Power Building, it’s hard not to take pictures of it.

On Sunday I got back from another 4-day jaunt to Windsor for the continuing SRSI. The project is pretty incredible. I wish I had some short segments to share but I’m well behind on the editing part, sadly.

More...

As per usual I promise more posts and then vanish. The first leg of my Extraordinary Windsor Adventure is now complete and I suppose I’ve been pretty busy.

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I wake to the sound of birds. Behind them, a distant roar.

The house is empty save for me, and strangely, sparsely furnished. There are two mini-fridges, no big fridge or stove. The lot next to me is a small patch of farmland. On the other side, a vacant lot.

Across the street, the University of Windsor. In the background, the great commercial sluice that is Huron Church Road, carrying a continuous torrent of trucks to and from the Ambassador Bridge, the great monument to cross-border commerce that cleaves a community in two. I’m here to film. The event is Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation, in which a group of artists take up residencies in vacant commercial space in downtown Windsor.

The house I’m in is the Ecohouse, a project of the university. It’s used mostly for student group meetings, hence the mini-fridge.

I’ll be here on and off throughout the duration of the event, which ends in mid-july. I’ll try and keep posting as I go, as I think it will be pretty interesting.