The Border Bookmobile Public Archive and Reading Room

–Lee Rodney in collaboration with Mike Marcon

The Border Bookmobile is a cross-border community archive containing books, artist projects, photographs, videos, maps and ephemera about the urban history the Windsor-Detroit area and other  border regions. The project aims to reposition local history within the context of international borders, chronicling the shifting relationship between the two communities as post-9/11 border policies continue to drive a wedge between these two cities, cities that were once intricately connected. Over the past three years, the Border Bookmobile traveled throughout Windsor and Detroit as a mobile exhibition and discussion platform acting as a catalyst to discuss borders within and between cities, and the production of space within borderlands more generally.

At the AGW, the Border Bookmobile will serve as public archive and project space, hosting a series of discussions and workshops. The project aims to collect, inventory and synthesize knowledge about this border region to contextualize globally, and chronicle, locally, the changing perceptions of the border. It also aims to promote a sense of civic engagement that crosses the border through raising awareness of the interconnections that once existed between Windsor and Detroit and to facilitate a series of cross-border urban community exchanges that take into consideration the current realities of stricter border regulations.