Claiming Open Spaces
Claiming Open Spaces explores African American culture as it clashes with the design of the modern American city. The film includes a comprehensive section on New Orleans — the vital place of historical significance that this city holds, and its role in continuing African American tradition and culture. The film is both a critical examination of the design and histories of American urban open space, as well as a celebration of leisure, recreation, and resistance.
The city parks of Columbus, New Orleans, Detroit, Oakland, and Montgomery, and the African Americans who frequent them, are the subjects of this urban documentary. Public spaces, and the ways in which we use them, sometimes conflict with official city planning.