On Thursday, May 1st 2014 @ 07:00 PM Miriam Paeslack, Assistant Professor, Arts Management Program at University at Buffalo and editor of Ineffably Urban: Imaging Buffalo (Ashgate Publishers), will be promoting the hardcover book that revolves around Buffalo’s artistic, historical, and architectural positions.
We all know that Buffalo has an issue when it comes to its image. The image of Buffalo is finally beginning to shift to a more positive light. Paeslack’s book takes a look at the city’s image through the eyes of its populace, in a way that reflects how the ill perceptions came about and where the city stands today concerning the city’s rebirth while attempting to shed an old skin. “The book was inspired by my curiosity about the conflicting yet very limited notions about the image of Buffalo when I moved here in 2009,” said Paeslack. “There is an enormous local pride about the city’s history that clashes with general assumptions about Buffalo as decrepit shrinking city. The book seeks the dialogue with artists, planners, scholars and activists to build a more complex image of the city. It however also acknowledges the ineffability, i.e. the impossibility to fully grasp the image of any city. Buffalo thus remains “ineffably urban.””
This launch event is going to be attended by some of the authors; there will be readings…
Topics include:
Dennis Maher’s micro-cosm of the city, his “Fargo house” on Fargo Street
J-M Reed’s fascinating series of photographs of Buffalo house fires
Architecture historian Hadas Steiner’s discussion of the historical significance of the city harbor’s grain silos
Photo historian Peter B. Hales’ journey through 19th and early 20th century maps and photographs of the city
Aaron Bartley’s surprising look at the new use of the concept of the pastoral
Architecture critic Mimi Zeiger’s puzzling and at times amusing exploration of urban branding efforts in Buffalo during the last forty years
The book will be for sale for a significantly lower price than the list price at the launch.
“Ineffably Urban – Imaging Buffalo, challenges and complicates the usual imagery and discourse surrounding today’s shrinking cities. Here artists, designers, and activists as well as academics probe what remains unexpressed about Buffalo. Excavating the many lives and places nested within the city’s past and present, this collection imagines another kind of urbanity, at once complex yet sustainable, for the future.” – Mary N. Woods, Cornell University, USA
“A touching homage to the decaying grand metropolis on Lake Erie, this book’s stories, case studies and historic accounts could similarly be told about other American cities. Besides the devastating effects of industrial restructuring in the 20th Century, the much older American ambivalence towards the urban still casts its shadow. There are heart wrenching dramas of decay and loss and also – again and again – inspiring stories of new urban initiatives and creative beginnings, of works of art inspired by local space and territory.” – Dietrich Neumann, Brown University, USA
Ineffably Urban – Imaging Buffalo | Thursday, May 1st @ 07:00 PM | free–book purchase encouraged
Hallwalls Cinema | Babeville | 341 Delaware Ave. @ Tupper | Buffalo