Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City
*Starred Review* “Dr. Garrett?” asked the British police officer who boarded the plane as soon as it landed at Heathrow. The American-expat Oxford researcher was about to be arrested for his trespassing exploits. He meant no harm. Quite the opposite. Garrett and his fellow urban explorers celebrate forgotten places and protest limits on access. In this unique and electrifying travelogue, Garrett, a scholar with a background in anthropology and archeology, thoughtfully explicates their dangerous, exhilarating, and illegal explorations. We picture hackers as loners slouched anemically in the sickly light of a computer screen, but Garrett and his fellow travelers are as fit, agile, and fearless as ninja. Sharing an ethos with street artists, their mission is to “exploit fractures in the architecture of the city in an effort to find deeper meaning in the spaces we pass through every day.” Garrett recounts death-defying adventures in the UK, Europe, and the U.S. and shares his astonishingly dramatic photographs. Not only do place-hackers explore and document such urban ruins as abandoned factories, hospitals, and power stations; they also breach security systems to stand on the roofs of skyscrapers and tramp through sewer and subway systems. Each journey involves deep research, high risk, and profound intent. And wherever they go, they leave a sticker that reads, “Explore everything.” --Donna Seaman