Nicole Macdonald
2021Last Days of Chinatown
Nicole Macdonald
Detroit's Cass Corridor, one of the roughest areas in the city for the past 100 years, is experiencing a complete overhaul, as long-awaited development finally sweeps the area. Long known as a center of drugs and prostitution, and also once home to a thriving Chinese enclave, it’s now peppered with boutique shops, new bars and restaurants and the just-debuted Little Caesars Arena. This feature from noted Detroit artist Nicole Macdonald mixes a personal, journalistic and historic approach as it looks at who and what remains in the Corridor. We hear how residents survived, and how they sometimes didn't, as gentrification redefines the space.
Last Days of Chinatown
A Park For Detroit
Nicole Macdonald
An island park in the Detroit River functions as a prism for human development in this meditation on the city’s past, present and future from filmmaker Nicole Macdonald. Using news footage and surveillance tapes from motion sensor cameras, Macdonald narrates over images of Belle Isle’s abandoned zoo, posing questions about the reinvestment in Detroit and its intended effects.
A Park For Detroit
