living room documentary tour: Detroit, Michigan "the Motor City"

April 8, 2006. Reflections on Entering the Rust Belt. (liz)

I never gave Detroit much thought before. I never had a desire to visit it, but I never had anything against it either. It was just one of those places that I never really thought about because I didn't hear much of anything about it. It is one of the most interesting cities I've ever been to.

It seems as if one out of every three buildings is either completely abandoned, falling in on itself, a burned out shell, or in some state of disrepair to the point of being uninhabitable. There is more trash lying everywhere than I've ever seen in any other city. Detroit kind of looks like it just got hit with a natural (or unnatural) disaster of some kind. But it didn't. This is just normal life in what is one of the most obviously neglected and poorly maintained cities I've seen.

Detroit used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S. Then the car companies started moving overseas in the late 1960s. Money and jobs started draining out of the city. There were also some riots in the late 60s/early 70s that caused a lot of the people left with resources to leave. I guess it was the typical story of white flight to the suburbs combined with the fact that the city had been so dependent on auto-manufacturing jobs to support its economy. I mean, I just keep thinking of Michael Moore. Now Detroit is the second poorest city in the U.S.

In some ways Detroit is tragically beautiful, in that whole post-apocalyptic, romanticism of decay and abandonment kind of way. There are some amazing buildings that are ending up as beautiful ruins. Especially the old train depot.

Another cool area was the no longer used sunken traintrack that goes through downtown.

Beau (from the Trumbleplex) posing in front of graffiti art

Also, it seems like people are able to make really great, creative uses of space because there is just so much of it that is completely neglected or underutilized. Two of the people we are staying with work at an urban farm in town. We got a tour of that this morning. They run some gardening programs for kids, sell produce to people in the area, and are even doing a bioremediation project with sunflowers that involves using sunflower pulp for tags for the jam and honey they make and sell at farmers markets. (among other things)

The Heidelberg Project
Patrick gave us a little tour of the farm today and then also took us to what I think is quite possibly one of the most amazing places I've ever been. It is something called the Heidelberg Project. This artist has been turning an entire city block into installation art for the last twenty years. He basically is taking some of the abandoned houses in his neighborhood and turning them into huge installation art pieces. One of the houses is covered in different colored polka dots. Another is covered in different numbers. There was one house with stuffed animals covering the entire outside. There was a tree full of shoes, an over full of shoes, a car full of shoes. There was a yard full of old vaccuum cleaners.

The way that things are placed and painted is amazing. There were also paintings put up everywhere. It was amazing. The artist who has created all of this stuff is Tyree Guyton. We actually met him today and talked to him a little bit about his work. He was out doing some touch up to some of the art in preparation for a documentary that some people from Paris are doing about the project this week.

(picture taken from his website)

Here is there mission statement from the project's website:
The Heidelberg Project is a Detroit community-based non-profit organization that empowers people through art. Our mission is to inspire people to appreciate and use artistic expression as means to enrich and improve their lives, and to beautify and preserve the environments in which they live, work and play. The Heidelberg Project is a non-profit 501c (3) corporation developing innovative ways to use art as a catalyst to halt the decline of the East Side neighborhood by preserving its homes, discouraging crime and offering new hope to its residents.

The art is not just art for art's sake but is intended to draw attention to Detroit neighborhoods that are being so neglected.

Something else about the artist from the webiste:
"Guyton's cityscape art gallery has changed the city blocks on which it is located and those nearby from deserted combat zones to places where people stop and stare. Part of the fascination surrounding Guyton's works, perhaps, is that they are forever changing due to weather or the environment, or through the artists whims. And Guyton has linked his neighborhood to the rest of the city, the state of Michigan, the country, and the world."

"As we become more and more connected globally, we need to remind ourselves that the sense of community is rooted in a sensitivity to a particular place. "

The Trumbleplex

We're staying at the Trumbleplex, a collectively owned and operated house that has been around for about 15 years. It is huge and old and beautiful. It is kind of falling apart in places but it is one of the most beauitful houses I've ever been in. They also have a theater/performance space in the back of their house where they have a couple of events each week usually. They also have a huge plot of land next door where they have a huge garden and they have chickens and a turkey too.