Graphic design graduate
student Mark Cook wanted to document life in the Saint Joseph/Benton
Harbor area of Michigan as best he could.
He set aside a minute.
On March 26, 30 graduate
and undergraduate students armed with cameras, audio recorders
and notebooks set out to help Cook capture ordinary life in the
twin cities, located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Saint
Joseph River, about 35 miles north of campus. They did so by training
their eyes and recording equipment on various locations for 60
seconds, from 3:26 to 3:27 in the afternoon. Cook then assembled
the images into a kind of computerized slide show. The production
mingled photographs with text from students and others in the
community who agreed to write down what they were thinking about
and doing at the designated minute.
The art student describes
his project as a "social documentary" on the cities, which are
divided not only by a river but along economic and racial lines.
Saint Joseph, on the south bank, offers the impression of quaint
Northeastern sea town. The majority of its 9,000 residents are
middle- to upper-class. Benton Harbor is overwhelmingly black
and economically depressed.
Cook grew up in Niles,
Michigan, just north of South Bend, and says he had been contemplating
doing some sort of a documentary on the Saint Joe/Benton Harbor
area for years. His interest peaked after riots erupted in Benton
Harbor in June 2003 following the death of a black motorcyclist
who was being chased by police.
Cook presented the
documentary to faculty by projecting it from the ceiling onto
the surface of a shallow wooden box filled with black latex paint.
The liquid surface made the images and text appear to float as
they scrolled slowly from one end of the container to the other.
Cook says he chose the black paint to suggest the river, the one
element the towns share and also the one that physically divides
them.
He says he plans
to display the materials in public libraries and schools in the
area as a tool for instructor-led dialogue. He hoped to complete
the project by mid-summer.
(July 2004)
