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LAST DAYS OF CHINATOWN
April 28, 2018 @ 8:00 pm
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April 28th @ 8pm
LAST DAYS OF CHINATOWN
Detroit’s Cass Corridor, one of the roughest areas in the city for the past 100 years, is now experiencing a complete overhaul, as long-awaited development finally sweeps the area. Known as a center of drugs and prostitution, the area once branded the red-light district of the city was also called “Fire Alley,” in recognition of its status as the arson capital of Michigan. The final incarnation of Detroit’s Chinatown was officially established in the Corridor in 1963, but the new millennium has seen the demise of this enclave.As over half the neighborhood has now burned or been demolished, Last Days of Chinatown looks at who and what remains in the Corridor. We hear how residents survived, how they sometimes didn’t, who fled the area and why — as gentrification now redefines the Corridor — long home to the poor and disenfranchised as well as to the artists and visionaries of the city.
Colin Zyskowski works in various areas of media and the arts, using sound as his primary medium. His work focuses on interactivity and immersion, often employing micro-controllers and sensors to enhance environments and extend the capabilities of modern machines. In recent years, he has presented his work on musical robotics and interfaces in New York, Berlin, Athens, Florence, and San Diego. He is currently a PhD candidate in computer music at UCSD.Nicole Macdonald is an artist who paints and collages her Detroit environment in miniatures and maximums, portraits and landscapes, with brush and camera. As director of the Detroit Film Center from 2006-2009, Macdonald curated screenings of local and independent film and video work in downtown Detroit. Since then, she has worked as a digital video instructor for Y-Arts (Southeast Michigan YMCA network), focusing on inner-city youth and low-income adult education. Her documentaries on the Detroit environment and city history have won Best Michigan Filmmaker at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Best Documentary at Humboldt Film Festival, and the John Michaels Filmmaker Award for Social Activism and Community Empowerment at the Big Muddy Film Festival, and have screened at Media City International and Full Frame film festivals.
Doors 7:30; $5 admission.