With Barack Obama’s U.S Presidential win, history has been made . Here is a photo montage, which captures the fight for voting rights for African-Americans to today. Obama’s win caused me to reflect on a documentary that I had seen about six years ago.

Growing up in the Maritimes, it took a Non-Maritimer to introduce me to the documentary Remember Africville , which opened my eyes to a piece of Nova Scotia’s history. Around the time of the American Revolution , approximately 3000 Black persons moved to Nova Scotia. Their settlement was not easy and according to the Nova Scotia museum website, their descendants still struggle today for employment, access to education and human rights. There is more information about Nova Scotia’s Black loyalists online.

Remember Africville is a documentary, produced by the National Film Board , that is pieced together from archived photos and film. Africville was a small community in the north end of Halifax, Nova Scotia that was founded in 1840 by former slaves who escaped slavery during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Inhabited by approximately 400 people, the community of Africville was a place where the residents were able to live in privacy and away from racism.
Below is a photo of Africville by photojournalist Bob Brooks :

As urban development progressed, the city neglected to provide Africville with running water, sewage, electricity or fire or police protection. In fact, the city saw Africville as a dumping ground, literally moving the city dump to the edge of Africville, among one of the many problems that the city forced upon this community. When the residents petitioned the city for amenities that, by this time, were considered standard, they were told it would be considered but it never was. By the mid 1900s, Africville was seen as very problematic for the city of Halifax. In 1964, as part of an urban renewal program, the city decided to relocate the residents of Africville into project housing, such as Uniacke Square , around Halifax, effectively disbanding the community of Africville. None of the families or landowners had a choice, their compensation was minimal if at all and they were forced out as bulldozers razed the community to the ground.

Remember Africville , made from archived photos and films, was created in 1991 and it speaks to lawmakers and former residents and descendants of Africville. The film won the Moonsnail Award for Best Documentary at the Atlantic Film Festival , and more than that helped to get the story of Africville out to the world. Although perhaps one of the most severe cases of racial discrimination in Canada’s history , many Canadians still haven’t heard about Africville. CBC has created an archive of radio and television footage devoted to telling the story of Africville.

Below is a snippet of Remember Africville .

De retour à Pékin, je me suis trouvé par hasard dans une exposition d’Edward Burtynsky, un photographe canadien, à la Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery . Ma première connaissance de lui vient du documentaire Manufactured Landscapes . Ses images choquantes extériorisent notre influence perturbante sur l’environnement. Il a pris plusieurs collections de photos en Chine. Les éléments bruts caractérisés dans ses photos marquent nos traces, parfois indésirables, sur notre planète. De plus, Burtynsky a été commandé à photographier le projet du Barrage des Trois-Gorges. Ce dernier mesure deux kilomètres de large et monte jusqu’à 185m de haut.

Apart from the Three Gorges Dam, his numerous works on China covered, among other subjects, manufacturing, urban development and recycling. As I was watching the displacement of people for the construction of the dam as shown in Manufactured Landscapes played on site, I regretted that I did not have a chance to visit the villages and cities, all of which will definitely be submerged in water. Like many people, I am perplexed by this huge construction project, but "taming the water" (治水), as in solving the problem of flooding, has a long legend in Chinese history. On the other hand, if you never really thought about how we consume, entertain or live would shape the environment, a look at his photos will definitely get you thinking. For his striking photos on the dam, on shipbreaking and much more, visit edwardburtynsky.com.

How big can an outdoor LCD display get? Take a look at THE biggest LCD in Beijing located at “The Place” 世贸天阶

We could forget about Time Square for now. Guestimate with the pics and video before checking the answer below. Quel écran LCD ÉNORME qui vous choque! Est-ce que c’est un bon usage de l’espace, ou simplement gaspillage?

According to 163.com, it was designed by Jeremy Railton of Entertainment Design Corporation. Dimensions for you quantitative geeks: 250m x 30m.

The video for Stop Me is like a living testament to the eighties in Manchester. In all its burned out post industrial shell the Smiths lads bike about so dismal and unrestrained.

So many signs and places and I am told that only the Salford Lads Club still stands amongst all that living wreckage of the Industrial Revolution. There is even a not so subtle nod to the Coronation Street franchise which still runs strong.

Since then the cranes have come out and Manchester likes to say how it has more cracking than even London itself. That remains debatable but the fact is the barren landscapes have undergone serious regeneration. John Davies, the UK photog is famous for his photography of the Uk including Manchester in much of its post industrial years. He was amongst this years Deustche-Boerse Photoraphy Prize winners.

Cabrini-Green was once called America’s worst slum high rise housing projects. Now with some help from a heap of dynamite the failed monolith is finally history. What is to replace it is a mixed income human scaled community.

The Chicago Housing Authority is executing a whole new vision for the city. See a link to video of new replacement housing etc. here.

Also in Chicago, Ida B. Wells homes are slated for demolition, but this doc tells of its former life from the inside.

Gang Leader for a Day is a book by Sudhir Venkatesh about researching the Robert Taylor Homes. Built over 40 years ago, all 53 projects are slated for demolition by 2009. Many are already gone. Robert Taylor Homes housed around 27,000, when the demolition is done about 40,000 people will be displaced. Hear Sudhir talk about the book on NPR here. Along with an accompanying book review.

It was seven years ago today. In memorium of when gay pagan musicians were still capable of ruling the skies of NYC. Those days are, of course, all over.

Enjoy the Silence, by Depeche Mode makes you remember the twin towers they stood atop. In retrospect ‘Enjoy the Silence’ seems a regretable title.

SOURCE: skyscraperpage.com

This is Aaron Draplin telling a story about an old motel sign in a video clip from an upcoming doc. He’s a graphic designer and very passionate about what he does. Strong language- mostly lots of F words. If you like design stuff you gotta check out his site. draplin.com

The borough area of Delfshaven, Rotterdam approached artist Florentijn Hofman to come up with a temporary solution to a soon-to-be demolished residential block just outside of the city’s center. Armed with an airless paint gun, he transformed this once run-down and unseen block of houses into one of Rotterdam’s most photographed areas.

The block was painted in 2004, then later demolished in 2006.

Maybe Montreal should do something like this with St. Catherine’s black hole near Atwater.

-craig

New York, it used to be called something else, but that is the past. The place where the tallest things are is an island. And at the tip is the place where the tallest two were. As I approach those memories I step off the Wall Street subway and ascend to the cross of boulevards fixed with their neon and marble facades saying things with words and numbers that move at such a speed that they make up all our economy.
Then I turn a corner and there is only a lot of space beyond liberty plaza, beyond the big red sculpture that suggests some sort of rupture. And beyond that are the cranes saying something new is to come to the sky. I imitate their momentum. I take my hands standing them upright to the place that once held so many stories. And I cover that place that lays so barren. Some temporary something. Then I flip away my hands and hold them down against the street moving it like a strobe light scanning the ground. Round and round New Amsterdam. The name this island held before it was New York. And now, who knows how many names this ground has held…