The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep

'Detroit is dying. But, it is not dead yet.'
This great article was published almost a year ago but is well worth reading.

(For more on Jimini Hignett's work in Detroit click here.)

Requiem for Detroit

At the IDFA (International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam) last week I happened to see a work-in-progress preview of a ‘Requiem for Detroit’ by ‘roll&roll’ documentary maker Julian Temple. It included some of our friends – Grace Lee Boggs, poet John Sinclair, the Packard plant and artist Tyree Gruyton. On the whole there were way too many white men talking and not enough coherent Afro-Americans included, but it linked threads of auto-industry and Motown and was, I suppose, entertaining enough. It’s a BBC-2 production, I expect it’ll be out sometime early next year.

This from the industry news site:
Detroit Requiem
“An award-winning independent production company has been commissioned by BBC Two to produce a documentary that will tell the 'roller-coaster' story of a US city's automotive industry.
Told through the testimony of the people who lived through it, Requiem for Detroit?, is a single episode 75-minute programme that is being directed by Julien Temple, from Films of Record, a Ten Alps company which specialises in high quality factual programming
He said that it will be powered by extraordinary archive – vivid projections of the famous American city's heyday on its now abandoned buildings – and the irrepressible music that continues to come out of Detroit, from ragtime and rap to techno.”
Read more here
More from Jimini Hignett here...

NY Times: In Detroit, Agencies Compete to Sell City as a Creative Haven

Yesterday, November 15, Stuart Elliott wrote for the NY Times about selling Detroit as a creative Haven. Check it out.

Model D on 'Icons of Hope'

Model D, a web magazine that creates a new narrative for Detroit, covered Diederick Kraaijveld’s project.

“Artist Diederick Kraaijeveld is standing over what looks to be a pile of junked wood. The pieces are assorted in color, jagged and broken, and the rusty, crooked nails jutting from the ends of a few slabs seem like prime territory for acquiring tetanus.

"I know where each one of these came from," he says as he plunges his hand into the pile and grabbing a yellow, short, stumpy, square plank. "This came from the Packard Plant. The color has a lot of texture and history to it." Sure, but watch those nails, please.

Kraaijeveld isn't from these parts -- as you could have probably guessed from the obscene amount of vowels in his last name. He comes from Hilversum, which is in Holland, about 40 minutes outside of Amsterdam. He was in Detroit, along with his friend and Dutch photographer Gideon Elings, salvaging pieces of wood from various spots -- mostly abandoned -- to build what he calls ‘Icons of Hope’.”

Click here to read more.

Idea of the day...

press from NEW GEOGRAPHY via a mention in the NYT.

Motown To Misery

Long article in today's Guardian about Detroit click here for the link.