Welcome to the Neighborhood

The highly touted revitalization of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, has brought meaningful questions about urban development to the surface of this town’s conversations. To what extent should a city attempt to preserve its previous character? When we foist master-planned entertainment districts upon citizens, are we losing an essential component of the city’s past?Put the development-as-existential-dilemma question in a whole new perspective at Cinema City, a new installation opening today as part of the Urban Culture Project at Paragraph (23 East 12th Street). Urban preservation enthusiasts and Iowa-based artists Russ Nordman and Jody Boyer will unveil an evolving miniature city composed of video projections, paper buildings and found materials. In a Mr. Rogers twist, a model train with a live video camera will allow visitors to experience this city as scale-model visitors. On Saturdays, the artists encourage visitor participation in building the city. Today’s opening runs from noon to 5 p.m.; for more information, call 816-221-5115.

Thursdays, Saturdays, 12-5 p.m. Starts: Aug. 2. Continues through Oct. 4, 2008