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EVENT RECAP
Congress for Urban Transformation (CUT)
The Congress for Urban Transformation brought residents together with artists, architects, and urban planners to reimagine Flint and work on small–scale projects to rebuild the city.
"Reimagine" and "rebuild" – people said those two words many times at the Congress for Urban Transformation (CUT), our fall conference that ended this past Sunday. We brought residents together with visiting artists, architects, landscape architects, and urban planners to create new visions for Flint while also building quick, small-scale projects to show how art and design can transform the city.
Here are some highlights from CUT:
Friday
Mayor Dayne Walling, Dan Kildee, candidate for Congress for Michigan, and youth leadership group Unified Sisters kicked off our opening night program to celebrate community groups across the city who worked with our visiting artists and designers during the week.
Students at Flint/Genesee Job Corps brought on stage one of three benches that they had built in just three days that can be used at bus stops all over the city. Kenyetta Dotson from the WOW Outreach youth group talked about their workshop with artist James Rojas to build a model representing their ideal city, and how that could be created in Flint. Landscape architect Susannah Drake and Derek Williams, from the arts collective Peace Mob, showed drawings of a new orchard that they created earlier that day. Artist Jay Rowland and Bill Hammond, executive director of Salem Housing CDC, described a mural they are painting on the north side.
Saturday
How should Flint and other cities like it around the world deal with abandoned homes, old industrial sites, urban agriculture, and master plans? Saturday, visiting artists and local leaders gave presentations and shared ideas and strategies to tackle these questions.
A few highlights: Steve Montle from Center for Community Progress and environmental engineer Joel Parker described a new model for reclaiming industrial sites – rather than wait for huge investments, the city and local residents can activate, beautify, and remediate the site in the short-term. Greg Gaines from Mr. Rogers Garden Program and Stephen Arellano talked about the growing urban agriculture movement in Flint, and how the city's zoning laws could be revised to make building hoop houses easier.
In the afternoon, Doug Weiland from Genesee County Land Bank and Dan D'Oca from the urban planning and design firm Interboro looked at the many ways residents in Flint and Detroit are claiming vacant lots adjacent to their homes, and how stretches of Dort Highway that seem abandoned or rundown are actually places that people are reclaiming as a new kind of public space. For the final panel, City of Flint Chief Planner Megan Hunter described the city's efforts to create its first master plan in more than 60 years, and the process to involve as many people in decision making as possible. Panelists agreed that when people see government investing in new ways of building, and responding to specific concerns that all participants have agreed are priorities, then they will know the master plan has been a success.
Sunday
At 9am, about 40 people gathered at Chevy in the Hole for the first-ever public tour of the site since the GM plants closed. Steve Montle and Joel Parker showed the hundreds of new trees that the city has planted to clean up the soil and beautify the site, and the huge piles of compost that are being processed on site. Joel explained that many parts of the site are safe for a wide range of events and activities today.
After the tour, the group moved to Kettering University for a workshop with James Rojas. Everyone built models showing what kinds of short-term uses they'd like to see on the site. The group came up with more than a hundred ideas, including pumping water from the river to flood a portion of the site for a skating rink, creating an installation that broadcasts former autoworkers' stories and traces their daily paths through the old factories, and creating a distribution system to share compost with community gardeners around the city,
We are deeply grateful to everyone who participated and everyone who helped made the conference possible. Stay tuned for next steps!
PHOTOGRAPHS
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Unified Sisters Photograph by Jerome Chou
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
VIDEO
Oct. 26 - 28, 2012
UM–Flint KIVA and locations throughout Flint
Information for visitors
Congress for Urban Transformation (CUT)
A three day conference featuring artists, planners, architects and community
organizers from Flint and around the country sharing best practices for urban revitalization.
Fri Oct. 26, 7 – 9 pm
Program
U of M – Flint: KIVA Auditorium, 400 Mill St.
7:00 pm Introduction: Stephen Zacks
7:15 pm Welcome: Mayor Dayne Walling
7:25 pm Welcome: Dan Kildee, Democratic candidate for Congress from Michigan and founder of the Genesee County Land Bank
7:35 pm Performance: Unified Sisters
7.50 – 9 pm
Interventions
From October 22 to 26, Flint Public Art Project invited artists and designers from around the country to work with groups to landscape a new orchard, design and build seating for a bus stop, and create small-scale physical models to illustrate changes residents would like to see in their neighborhoods. On the opening night of the conference, participants share the results of these collaborations.
To join an urban intervention with a visiting designer, contact Jerome Chou.
Sat Oct 27, 10 am – 6 pm
Panel discussions
UM – Flint: Michigan Room, 303 E. Kearsley St.10:00am – 11:30am: Reclaiming former industrial sites
Former factories sites can be transformed into public spaces, museums, and thriving communities. See how cities around the world are reclaiming abandoned industrial areas, restoring plants and wildlife, recovering their industrial history, and reconnecting people to abandoned spaces. Center for Community Progress fellow Steve Montle and environmental engineer Joel Parker report on the city’s efforts to remediate Chevy–in–the–Hole, a 130–acre former GM manufacturing plant in the heart of the city.
11:30am – 1pm: Growing urban agriculture
In cities across the country, residents are reclaiming vacant lots to grow food, provide job training, educate young people, and create safe public spaces. How can city governments, citizens, and partners support and expand this movement? Learn how urban farmers and gardeners in Flint, Toledo, and New York City are gaining access to land, soil, and other resources to strengthen their communities.
1pm – 2pm: LUNCH at Hoffman's Deli
503 Garland St @ West 2nd Ave
2.15pm – 3.45pm: Re-using abandoned buildings and vacant lots
How can cities and residents turn devalued land into opportunities? Discarded materials, public events, temporary spaces, and other unconventional strategies can inspire possibilities for reusing vacant buildings and land. Doug Weiland, executive director of the Genesee County Land Bank, describes initiatives to manage vacant properties, and artists and architects present examples of beauty made from ruins and activated empty spaces.
3.45pm – 5.15pm: Planning and process for legacy cities
Master plans are the road map to a city’s future. They point residents, businesses, and city governments toward a common destination. An inclusive, accessible process can bring communities together to imagine what a city can be. Planners and architects working in Detroit, Newark, and Philadelphia compare notes with Flint’s Chief Planner Megan Hunter on the challenges and opportunities their cities face and the best ways to engage publics.
Speakers:
Jill Allen, Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Stephen Arellano, Food Systems Consultant
Matthieu Bain + Andrew Perkins, Dwelling on Waste
Susannah Drake, dlandstudio
Alex Gilliam, Public Workshop
Megan Hunter, Chief Planner, City of Flint
Interboro Partners
Dan Kinkead, Hamilton Anderson Architects
Steve Montle, Center for Community Progress
Kyong Park, founder, Storefront for Art & Architecture
Joel Parker, Project Designer and Engineer, Chevy–in–the–Hole
Damon Rich, Chief Urban Designer, City of Newark;
Founder, Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)
James Rojas, Place–It!
Brent Ryan, Author, Design After Decline
Dayne Walling, Mayor, City of Flint
Doug Weiland, Director, Genesee County Land Bank
Sun Oct 28, 9 am – 4 pm
Re–imagining Chevy–in–the–Hole
Stevenson Street between Bluff and Glenwood; and Kettering University: International Room, 1700 University Ave.The City of Flint is in the process of rehabilitating the former GM manufacturing landscape known as Chevy–in–the–Hole. FPAP and the Center for Community Progress welcome residents to the first public tour of the site since its closing, highlighting current initiatives and emerging possibilities. Following the tour, participants are invited to two workshops: Opening Chevy shares details about the opportunities and constraints for reuse of the site; Speeding Chevy organizes participants into small groups to generate strategies to reclaim the site with temporary activities, events, and programs.
9am – 9.45am: Chevy–in–the–Hole Tour
Meet at the marked gate on Stevenson Street between Bluff and Glenwood
10am – 1pm: Interactive workshops
Kettering University: International Room, 1700 University Ave.
Light refreshments will be served.
EVENT RECAP
October Art Walk
During the October Art Walk, Jerome Chou organized a discussion in the Spacebuster inviting leaders of downtown redevelopment projects to grapple with questions about financial constraints on development, urban history, cultural diversity, and the connection of downtown to the surrounding neighborhoods. Scott Whipple from Uptown Developments, Natasha Thomas–Jackson, Robert Fishman from the University of Michigan were among the featured panelists. Afterwards, Madrid native Annie Hall of the Detroit Underground label spun inside the bubble, while Kero produced a spectacular projection mapping installation on the surface of the Genesee Towers. Inside the inflatable instant public space, young people danced the night away.
Oct. 12, 2012
7pm to 11pm
120 E. First Street
Genesee Towers / Spacebuster
Art Walk
Kero and Annie Hall / Downtown Futures
Downtown Futures
Fri. Oct. 12, 7 – 11 pm
Panel Discussion and Art Installation
Across the country, a city's health is often judged by its downtown. But in many formerly industrial cities such as Flint, the form and function of downtown - and its relation to its surrounding neighborhoods and the region - has changed dramatically in recent decades. What are the challenges and opportunities for downtown revitalization in Flint and other similar cities? How do cities ensure that downtown development supports neighborhood development?
On Friday, October 12, join Flint Public Art Project outside Genesee Towers (a modernist office tower slated for demolition) for an evening of events about the future of downtown.
From 7 – 8 pm, join developers and neighborhood activists from Flint and Detroit for a panel discussion on the changing function of downtown.
Downtown Futures Panel:
Robert Fishman, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design,
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Natasha Thomas–Jackson, Executive Director, Raise it Up Youth Arts & Awareness
Megan Heeres, Art Curator and Community Art and Garden Program,
Compuware (downtown Detroit)
Scott Whipple, Development and Project Manager, Uptown Reinvestment Corporation
Stephen Wisniewski, PhD candidate, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
From 8 – 11 pm, Windsor–based veterans of the Detroit electronic music scene Kero and Annie Hall spin tracks and install projection mapping work onto the Genesee Towers.
Free and open to the public.
About the Spacebuster:
The Spacebuster is a mobile inflatable structure designed by Raumlabor in 2009 and commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering.
Storefront for Art and Architecture has kindly loaned
the Spacebuster for this event.
event recap
Potluck + Movie at Flint River Farm
The wind buffeted the Spacebuster from side to side but the seams held firm. Urban farmers assembled with trays of baked good and pots of seasonal foods grown on repurposed lots. Jerk chicken and rice & peas sizzled on the lips of diners. Flint Crepe Co. arrived with a cart to serve savory crepes to the audience. The Greenhorns, a film on the new generation of urban farmers, projected inside the giant bubble, which glowed at the curve on Beach Street below 10th. Potlucks are always better in collaboration with people who grow their own food.
Storefront for Art and Architecture has kindly loaned
the Spacebuster for this event.
Screening
Potluck and Screening of "The Greenhorns"
Bring food to share for a potluck with local urban farmers, and a documentary about a new generation of young farmers in America.
About the Spacebuster:
The Spacebuster is a mobile inflatable structure designed by Raumlabor in 2009 and commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering.
Storefront for Art and Architecture has kindly loaned
the Spacebuster for this event.
SEPTEMBER 2012
Events Roundup
Braddock, Sep. 12
Barbecue in Braddock
The Spacebuster arrived late in the afternoon after crossing through Appalachia, met by Braddock's deputy mayor Jeb Feldman, who coordinated the event. DJ Chevy (he chose his handle because of his love of Corvettes) spun tracks and Pittsburgh chef Kevin Sousa served up barbecue. Kids danced and chased each other through the bubble; the older kids stayed for a dance party.
Flint, Sep. 14
Value + Ruin
Flint Public Art Project invited Etienne Turpin and Andrew Herscher to join Dwelling from Waste author and architect Andrew Perkins in a discussion about the revaluation of buildings, places, and social movements that have outlived their original uses. Detroit-based District VII and DJs Case Managerz installed video projections and played music inside the Spacebuster at the center of downtown during the monthly Art Walk.
Detroit, Sep. 21
The Archi-Cultural Shift
RogueHAA organized an exhibition at the Mies Storefront on the consequences of accelerated digital processes on cultural production, and how architecture has responded. FPAP artistic director Stephen Zacks participated in the panel and brought Raumlabor's Spacebuster from Flint to install in the parking lot of Mies Van Der Rohe's Lafayette Park, joined by District VII and Case Managerz.
Flint, Sep. 23
Be the Church Volunteer Day
Salem Community Development Corporation collaborated with the West Flint Church of the Nazarene to board vacant buildings along a stretch of Martin Luther King north of Welch Boulevard. Flint Public Art Project staff and volunteers painted the boards with horizontal stripes, influenced by Daniel Buren's conceptual art of the 1960s and 70s. In the coming weeks, we'll work with Salem and local artists to paint the facades of an abandoned commercial strip on MLK with representations of possible future businesses.
About the Spacebuster:
The Spacebuster is a mobile inflatable structure designed by Raumlabor in 2009 and commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering.
Storefront for Art and Architecture has kindly loaned
the Spacebuster for this event.
Kids on MLK enjoy popsicles after fuschia stripes. Photograph by Jerome Chou
DJ Chevy prepares to spin inside the Spacebuster in Braddock, PA.
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Raumlabor's inflatable structure installed in the parking lot outside the Mies Storefront in Detroit. Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Med students enjoy an architecture lecture in downtown Flint sitting on Srdjan Jovanovic-Weiss's Z-Blocks. Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Horizontal fuschia stripes on a freshly boarded building on the Northside, a concept by Flint Public Art Project. Photograph by Jerome Chou
Intervening in Flint public space with a project brought from New York by FPAP, courtesy of Storefront for Art and Architecture. Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Case Managerz packing up DJ gear in the Spacebuster.
Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Andrew Perkins presents Dwelling on Waste in front of projection mapping by Detroit's District VII. Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Perkins with FPAP volunteers Erin Lorenz and Angela Marchin, med students at Michigan State. Photograph by Stephen Zacks
Sep. 23, 2012
Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church,
corner of Welch & MLK
Max Brandon Park
Event
Be The Church Volunteer Day
Work alongside with Northside residents to board and beautify abandoned buildings, and enjoy family-friendly events.
panel discussion | exhibition
Detroit Design Festival: ArchiCULTURAL SHIFT
Flint Public Art Project takes the Spacebuster on the road. Join Artistic Director Stephen Zacks at the Detroit Design Festival for a panel discussion on the future of architecture in a digital era.
About the Spacebuster:
The Spacebuster is a mobile inflatable structure designed by Raumlabor in 2009 and commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering.
Storefront for Art and Architecture has kindly loaned the Spacebuster for this event.
September 14, 2012
7pm to 11pm
at the corner of Saginaw and 2nd Street inside the Spacebuster inflatable structure
ART WALK
Value + Ruin
How can abandoned buildings and vacant land recover value when traditional economic development tools fail? In Flint and in cities around the country, residents have turned the devaluation of property into opportunities for new uses, values, and ways of living in the city.
Join a panel of architects and historians from Toronto, Buffalo, and Detroit to look at the creative transformation of space.
Architect Andrew Perkins will discuss his new book Dwelling on Waste, on his recovery of a vacant home in Buffalo, and his work with the Carriage Town Historic Neighborhood Association to convert an abandoned house into a cooperative arts center, using sustainable and salvaged materials.
Andrew Herscher, co-founder of Detroit Unreal Estate Agency, will discuss his new book The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit, about how the ready availability of urban space in Detroit has allowed for experimentation, invention and new possibilities.
Urban researcher Etienne Turpin will present his research on labor movements in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit, and consider how monuments in those cities neutralize their radical histories.
With sound and video projections by District VII, a Detroit studio focused on art and technology.
About the Spacebuster:
The Spacebuster is a mobile inflatable structure designed by Raumlabor in 2009 and commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering.
© Alan Tansey
Storefront for Art and Architecture has kindly loaned the Spacebuster for this event.
August 19, 2012
5pm to 7pm
Reception at TORCH Bar,
Buckham Alley
August 19 - August 23, 2012
Gazall, Lewis & Associates Architects
503 S. Saginaw Street
August 23 - September 14, 2012
Flint Public Art Project
124 W. First Street
CONTACT
Stephen Zacks, 917 412 1926,
Flint Public Art Project
Stefan Eins, 917 605 0974,
OneUnoEins.com
FPAP PRESENTS
STEFAN EINS
Stefan Eins arrived in Flint two weeks ago. Inspired by the spirit of innovation in this city's history, he has created a series of images to be installed on Sunday, August 19th in the windows of Gazall, Lewis & Associates at the Mott Foundation building on Saginaw and First Streets.
An extension of his Five Found Pieces installation for the August Artwalk with two additional works, the images are Eins' response to visiting 'Chevy in the Hole' and other public spaces and to meeting Flint residents. On Aug. 23, the installation will be on view in the Flint Public Art Project office at 124 W. First Street, by appointment only.
Reception at TORCH Bar, Buckham Alley, Sunday, August 19th, 5 - 7 PM, in the immediate vicinity of the Mott Foundation building.
Eins was invited by the Flint Public Art Project in part because of his pioneering efforts in establishing historical models for the display of art in the public at FASHION MODA, the South Bronx museum of Science, Art, Invention, Technology, and Fantasy he founded in 1978, which the New York Times described as "World Famous".
In his own oeuvre he does not distinguish between art and science research. "Like Leonardo da Vinci, who noted the magical tendency of stains to become images before our own eyes," dArt International wrote, "Eins is taken with the working of the mind to perceive signs and wonders in ordinary life." In recent years he also focused on the physics of other dimensionality. His 2007 exhibition at MoMA/ PS 1 Contemporary Art Center dealt with related topics.
TREE at 1420 Illinois Ave.
SOLDIER, found at 'Chevy in the Hole'
CLARISSA SHIELDS, Flint's gold medal winner
MCC FABLAB
KEARSLEY STREET PROJECT
"MICKEY MOUSE" in Burton, Michigan
Friday July 13, 2012
7pm to midnight
performance
Ground Breaking Art Party
On Friday, July 13 from 7 pm to midnight, the Public Art Project returns downtown to light up the streets with video projections, glowing dancers in white Tyvek suits, a killer techno DJ, and sculptural lounge seating by New York-based Serbian-Jewish architect Srdjan Jovanovic-Weiss.
The first event in a year of art actions throughout the city, including the Congress for Urban Transformation (CUT) in October and the Free City Festival in May, Ground Breaking Art Party transforms First Street between Saginaw and Harrison into a place of spectacle, beauty, and play.
As dusk approaches, join us in the shadow of the famed Genesee Towers for an open-air Art Party: because this is contemporary art in the new city, and the days of the top-down Charity City are at an end.
Produced by Flint Public Art Project in affiliation with Flint Institute of Arts. Featuring Emma Davis, Eric Hinds, and DJ Litz.
Saturday July 14, 2012
projections
Buckham Alley Fest
The Public Art Project occupies the parking lot at the end of Buckham Alley and Kearsley Street, installing a series of spectacular projections to wow visitors and passersby.