the Blog

Welcome to StevenGagnon.com, the best way to keep up with all of my artistic activities, news, and upcoming exhibitions. It has been a long past few weeks as I presented the Border Cruiser at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. My week in Minneapolis was not as productive as my week in Denver due to the heavy police presence and the law that restricted me from playing the videos in the car when on public streets either parked or while driving. I left the Twin Cities on Friday and visited an old friend who lives in Chicago. On Saturday, I made the drive from the Windy City to North Carolina to visit my father who lives outside of Asheville. Next week, I will make the drive to Florida to put the car in storage and make it to Miami by the middle of the week.

Overall, the trip was productive and gave broader exposure of the project to many more people. During the Democratic National Convention, the project was displayed in front of Buffalo Exchange, the Museo de Arte Latin Americas, and driven around the streets of Denver. While driving the project, Senator John Kerry saw it and had to do a double take. Unfortunately, the light was green and I could not get over to the side of the street he was walking to give him a postcard explaining the project.

While in Denver, the car was written up in The Rocky Mountain News, Univision Online, Yahoo News, the Westword blog, and the Denver Post calender. It was also written up in The Twin Cities Daily Planet, The Minneasota Independent, the Twin Cities IndyMedia, and the Americans for Legal Immigration Forum.

The project was also the focus of a radio interview with journalist, Lakshmi Singh of "Latino USA". The program is distributed by NPR and produced by KUT in Austin. If all goes well, the piece should start airing this week, which means the show will be produced and fed to stations by Friday. But, the NPR-member stations run the show Latino USA independent of each other. So, the show with the story will likely be heard at various times across the U.S., depending on each station's program lineup. It will also be available on the web at latinousa.org.

I was frankly a little concerned with showing the Border Cruiser in the Twin Cities after seeing that the Minneapolis Police have cars that are all white with a black stripe very similar to the Border Cruiser. I was unaware of the similarities until after arriving in the city and driving by a police station. After contacting the Minneapolis Police, it seems that the car's markings are ok. What they have a problem with is the videos playing in the car. They have determined that it falls under a law the prohibits adding additional lighting that would distract fellow drivers. This law also prevents the car from being parked at a meter because the street is considered from curb to curb. Thus, I parked the car at the Unconvention in Peavey Plaza so that it was off the street. About an hour or so later, police arrived saying that I had to remove the car because the plaza was not designed to handle the weight of the vehicle. So unless I find a privately owned piece of land, I will not be able to display the vehicle in relevant areas in the Twin Cities.

If you need to reach me, please call me directly on my cell at 305 528 6405 or send me an e-mail .

Thanks,

Steven