from detroit to baltimore, and back again

this past semester investigating baltimore, i have often been reminded of detroit. there are so many similarities between the two places, but for some reason i only feel such a sense of urgency when i'm in baltimore. maybe i've just been surrounded by detroit my whole life that i need to step away from it for four years to be able to return and truly see it with new eyes. but when i'm traveling home, (wherever that happens to be for three days, five weeks, or a semester) both places stay at the forefront of my mind and i search to connect and reconcile the two.

i've already stumbled across two thing that are making the connection for me.

an entertainment type newspaper my dad saved for me with john waters on the cover holding a "baltimore city jail" sign. crime and john waters, how much more stereotypical can you get? but there was some truth hidden in the article- john waters on detroit: "john waters says he likes detroit because of its connection to his beloved baltimore, where he still lives and sets all of his films. both cities, he says, have suffered from negative publicity and an inferiority complex. 'we've been tough and funny and praised stuff that other people would try to hide,' he says. 'we've made it a style.'"

and a week-long detroit free press project called "driving detroit: it's worse than you think- but better, too." this was an exciting find for two reasons:

one, i've been wanting to do this thing for a few years now, sort of a photographic documentation/mapping of woodward avenue from start to finish. it's one of those ideas that i know is good because it has stuck in the back of my head for so long. i can see it so vividly. a panoramic type bridging together of photographs covering every inch of the street, covered with a long transparent overlay that would begin to get deeper with details and handwritten street names, and something that would come together and be displayed on the walls around a big gallery space. maybe now that i have all this winter break time on my hands i'll actually start doing it. just seeing the tagline for "driving detroit" on the cover of the free press gave me the comfort of knowing someone else is thinking the same thing. that's when it becomes more of a mentality, maybe eventually even a movement.

two, mapping has been a hot topic in baltimore. it's something that was introduced to me my first day of finding baltimore when we made self-maps. something that we are, at a basic level, asking each kid to do when the create something for "a neighborhood called baltimore." it's also the topic of a major exhibition coming to the walters art museum next year, "maps: finding our place in the world," and the community generated project presented in tandem, "maps on purpose," conceived by baltimore's art on purpose. it's also something that i'm finding more and more that i need to do for myself, lay it all out on the table and start connecting the dots.