Monthly Archive for April, 2010

Dubbed a Hero, Allen Looks to Take Farming to the Skies

Published on April 30, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From JSOnline.com greens20 greens20, fd, sieu

It’s hard to imagine a five-story farm in the middle of a city, but if Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen is behind the idea, anything’s possible.

After all, Allen is a world hero, according to an issue of Time magazine that hits newsstands Friday. He’s among 100 individuals and small groups picked by Time editors for the annual “Time 100: The World’s Most Influential People,” which honors ideas, innovations and actions that are “shaping our world.”

Allen already has been dubbed a genius by the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation, which awarded him a $500,000 “genius grant” in 2008.

Now all Allen and Growing Power’s board of directors must do is find $7 million to $10 million to build the farm that Allen has been envisioning for nearly two decades to take his nonprofit enterprise to the next level.

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Spaces and Flows: An International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Published on April 30, 2010 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

spaceslogo2

4-5 December 2010
University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Call for Papers

If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins with submission of a paper proposal. For information on proposals, presentation types, and other options, see: http://spacesandflows.com/conference-2010/call-for-papers/. To submit a proposal, see: http://spacesandflows.com/conference-2010/call-for-papers/. If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference.

Registration

Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal. Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. For registration options, or to register for the 2010 Spaces and Flows Conference, see: http://spacesandflows.com/conference-2010/register/.

Themes

Slide Show: Detroit, City of Ruins

Published on April 20, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Andrew Moore, The New York Review of Books

Known for his large-scale photographs of dilapidated buildings in places like Cuba, Russia, and Times Square, Andrew Moore has now turned his attention to Detroit. These images are from his new collection, Detroit Disassembled, published by Damiani and the Akron Art Museum, where an exhibition of his work will be on view from June 5 to October 10.

Moore’s photographs present a devastating scene of urban deterioration, offering us glimpses into abandoned motor plants, train stations, theaters, schools, hotels, police stations, and office buildings, along with vistas of vacant houses and lots. All of the buildings are in deep states of decay: moss grows on the floor of an office at the former Ford Motor Company headquarters; thousands of books molder in the Public Schools Book Depository; an unseen person keeps a small fire going under a plastic shelter inside the trash-filled engine works room of the Dry Dock Company Complex. One of Moore’s photographs, showing an abandoned nursing home, appears in the April 29 issue of The New York Review, in Tony Judt’s essay “Ill Fares the Land.”

Another book on the same subject, The Ruins of Detroit, by the French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, will be published by Steidl this summer. Marchand and Meffre had already begun their project when they met Moore, whose earlier work they knew, and they urged him to photograph Detroit as well. As a result, there are now two distinctive takes on the decline of a once-powerful center of the US economy: while Moore’s book is slender, with an essay by the poet Philip Levine, Marchand and Meffre’s collection puts across a broader sociological analysis. Both books allow an astonishing amount of beauty to surface, whether in the fading traces of ornate architectural elements or in the rich colors of freshly sprouted vegetation.

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—Eve Bowen