Yarning Detroit installation documentation:
***** (from the CAC, Centre d'art Contemporain GENEVA)

Three happy tales: part one / part two / part three

Detroit is a city in flames? It is meant to be overridden with the crime, neglect and corruption of the worst inner-city, post Ford variety. It also represents a total collapse between race relations, a hyperbole of institutional racism, segregation and violence. Many of the common stories about Detroit are too true, however, they cannot be the whole truth. That is, despite bleak statistics, Detroit is still a thriving city where people go about their everyday life in peace and quiet.

One of the most important problems in the contemporary city is housing. There are literally millions of crumbling, burnt out buildings and vacant lots all around the city. In close relation to this problem, there are also millions of neglected public works such as street paving, stoplights, bridges, viaducts, water supplies, sewage and waste disposal. This is because Detroit infrastructure in the last century was created for over 3 million people, and today the tax base is for a city of under 1 million.

After two-thirds of the city fled into the suburbs, (or maybe to Canada across the river), the city is simply unable to care for itself. These dark spots are breeding grounds for disease, drug-addiction, crime and neglect, making a huge barrier for the restoration of the city. There are several organizations dealing with the housing problem in Detroit. Our project focuses on one: Habitat Detroit, a regional branch of Habitat for Humanity. They focus on building new, solid homes and selling them at cost to create new communities of responsible, self-respecting people.

Two methods of reconstructing community health are empowerment zones and block clubs. An empowerment zone is a bureaucratic approach to focus on rebuilding a small zoned area within a greater neighborhood. A block club is a grass-roots organization made up of neighbors who come together to clean up their block. Both of these organizations use borders to focus their energies on one specific area instead of becoming overwhelmed with the entire problem.

We have seen and heard enough about the negative in Detroit. Current art shows featuring Detroit, especially Shrinking Cities in Berlin and to a lesser extent D Troit at Gigantic Art Space in New York, focus almost exclusively on spectacle (with some notable exceptions). This project by contrast, takes a personal look at a few individual people living and thriving in the Motor City.

Yarning Detroit installation documentation here:
***** (from the CAC, Centre d'art Contemporain GENEVE)