April 21, 2007, 10:50 pm
I spent the better part of this beautiful, nearly summer, day in and around the Ambassador Bridge, taking photographs for the Green Corridor's latest project. It's a two part project, actually, but my part in it is to document the entire campus and surrounding area, and the bridge just so happens to be in the middle of that.
Somewhere this semester, I remember reading about the unfortunate state in which we live for documentary films - actually, come to think of it, I heard it on CBC radio - likely Sounds Like Canada. Anyways, the discussions basically ended up with a comment on the commercialized and privatized public sphere in which many of these documentaries take place. Due to this commercialized and post-9/11 public sphere, documentary filmmakers are left to blur out, cut around and essentially cope with an element of public spaces that should be of a concern to them.
Where this is going is that today I was stopped by a police officer and two customs agents for photographing around the Ambassador Bridge and Customs offices. I've heard the stories before, many of my classmates have been reprimanded for taking photographs of the bridge, and I understand (though do not necessarily agree) with the reasons behind these situations. However, it got me thinking (and remembering that CBC show) about how little public space there actually is left to capture and use for art, documentary or otherwise. Fighting for a public space amongst government, commercial advertisements, private property and the like, leaves a strangely prohibited view of the world as a historical document. No trouble came from my meetings with the authorities, other than a request to move along, but it struck me that we live in such a cautious (dare I say, paranoid) world, and as citizens, we must hide or avoid public spaces found between the private and commercialized and protected.
When will the public sphere be reclaimed? I think the time for action against the commercialized public space within our neighborhoods and cities is before us. I also think that sounded more intense than I had wanted.
By Justin | 0 COMMENTS | POSTED IN: text
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