I walk to downtown Halifax from my apartment on Summit Street nearly every day. On Cogswell just up from Gottingen, there is a window that catches my eye whenever I walk by - it's been curtained off from the inside of the house, and made into a kind of display case. Its contents have changed several times since I've lived here, and usually involve a kind of diorama assembled from various objects, sometimes with text. This week I noticed a new display: a faded globe and the words another world is possible spelled out with scrabble tiles. The idea that someone is regularly changing the window display intrigues me. I'm interested in self-publishing, particularly via the web, and this strikes me as a kind of real-world equivalent to blogging.

On another street I've often noticed a child's artwork taped up in a living-room window - crayon drawings on coloured paper, or awkwardly scissored snowflakes. Both window displays are arguably not very different than holiday decorations, lawn gnomes, garage-door murals, or other forms of domestic ornamentation. What makes the Cogswell window unusual is its serial content, and the intent behind the work - to project a message into a public space. I interpret the contents of the window as a personal response to the outside world. There is a similar intent behind graffiti, which often changes and can be decidedly political. But the Cogswell window is more subtle, quieter, less intrusive. If you don't know it's there, it's easy to walk by without noticing it. It seems less concerned with asserting possession of a space than with low-key broadcasting. Yet it is different than a promotional poster stapled to a telephone pole because its purpose is less obvious. It leaves itself open to interpretation.

There are also parallels with advertising, and this kind of temporary window display also reminds me of storefront windows with mannequins that change weekly, or soup-of-the-day chalkboards propped outside downtown cafes. There is a church near my apartment that maintains a billboard with motivational messages (my favourite so far has been "worry is a waste of the imagination"). But the Cogswell window inhabits a different space, somewhere between public and private. By closing it off from the room inside, the window's curators seem to distance themselves from the window display. Yet it remains intimately connected with whoever inhabits the house, and is essentially a vehicle for personal expression. The diorama is one-of-a-kind, and operates as an artwork in many ways.

Spotted on a sidewalk in Montreal last spring.

In a culture where we are bombarded constantly by advertising - it can be difficult to find a public place without a blaring radio or television, or a manufactured object without a logo of some kind - the Cogswell window is a refreshing attempt to broadcast back. I appreciate its capriciousness, its assertion of hope against newspaper and television reports that usually insist otherwise. Despite its global avowal, it is inherently local in scope and character. I see this kind of personal publication as an extension of web culture, which is increasingly participatory and user-driven. At a time when it seems every second person has started a blog, why not use a bedroom window as a kind of broadcasting medium?

Elsewhere in Halifax's north end, cultural enthusiasts have taken this concept to a whole other level. Gallery Deluxe Gallery is a miniature art gallery run in the attic of two Willow St. residents; it's open to the public and has hosted almost twenty exhibitions in its two years of existence. A few blocks away, the Anchor Archive serves as a public library for self-published material such as zines, as well as the livingroom of a little red house on Roberts Street. The ambitious archivists have even started an artist-in-residence program in their backyard shed. Like the Cogswell window, these steadfastly grassroots operations inhabit a curious space between public and private, embracing self-sufficiency and DIY culture, and demonstrating a sense of whimsy, confidence, and optimism that flies in the face of mainstream media.