More Detroit: Art Stuff

While taking a far-too-often dip into my facebook newsfeed, I saw this article about a student art project that has grown into a much more developed initiative. The artist--Veronika Scott--is a student at CCS (Center for Creative Studies, an art school in Detroit), where she began creating sleeping-bag-winter-coat-backpacks for some of the city's 20,000 homeless citizens. Her assignment was to create a design that filled a need, and apparently it did so much so that she founded a non-profit organization to continue the project. Always exciting to see a school project that extends beyond its own walls! Reminds me a bit of Michael Rakowitz's paraSITE project that I know a lot of people have seen, which also seeks to address the needs of homeless people through innovative and often collaborative design.

As many of you probably know, Detroit, in all of its hullabaloo, is also home to a vibrant contemporary art scene. Many people are putting their money on the arts as instrumental in the city's progress, and the Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference is addressing that kind of transformation. This year--this week, actually--the conference will be held in Detroit, and Scott will be serving as a panelist.

Also, when I was home for fake-spring-break, I was able to check out MOCAD--the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. It's a small, non-collecting space that opened just a few years ago, housed, quite appropriately, in a former auto dealership. Both the shows that were up on my visit were really great. It's definitely worth a quick visit if you're ever in the area. I was so happy that their shows were thesis-relevant that I gave them $5.