Who get's to speak for a place
Right?
I mean, who get's to tell the story of a place.
There's just so
There's so much to wrap your head around here
And there's so many
I mean it's narrative on top of narrative
You know
And sometimes they like,
They flip over
Like it's just
It's a very complex place.
I think that
You know, being here, being in Detroit,
We are in the intersection of some really interesting questions,
And I think,
I think it's really fruitful;
I think it's really rich territory for people to explore.
It's a city that grew very organically over a long period of time,
And, it continues to change organically.
My name is Scott Hocking
I'm an artist, who's lived and worked in Detroit
proper, since 1996.
I'm 42 years old and have lived in Metropolitan Detroit for my entire life.
So the city of Detroit is a metropolis built for almost two million people.
And not just two million people
But two million people with the American dream.
Their own house, their own car, garage, front lawn.
You can also get, your fix for things that cities have,
There's definitely aspects of a city,
The scene here has aspects of a city,
But, it's not, a major metropolis.
But I've been to those places, I've spent lots of time on those places,
And I like the quietude that can be found here.
I like that it's not always 24 hours nonstop, awake,
Fast,
Work, work, work.
Crowded
So I think those qualities keep people in Detroit.
I'm Paulina Petkoski, I live in Detroit, MI.
And I am the co-founder of Playground Detroit.
And I'm Samantha Banks Schefman, I'm Paulinas's co-founder.
I think what really attracts me to Detroit
Uhm, is to begin, it's rich history,
In music, in the arts, in architecture
And how that has stuck in the city.
You know, it's something that we're surrounded by.
You know, we have few museums and few galleries, but I think that they're really strong.
We have one of the top design, uhm, private art schools in the country.
You know, I think that due to, what is,
What exists and the opportunity of growth here,
Is really attracting creatives from all over the world to move here and build.
I think a lot of Detroiters are very proud,
More proud than other places, because a lot of people that live here are from here.
And this is the center of the automotive industry.
You know, there's manufacturers in Germany, there's manufacturers in China, South Korea and Japan.
But, this is the center of automotive
Human mobility
Short range mobility.
So everything that isn't, a propeller with two wings,
It's here.
Detroit, I think, Has a real opportunity
To become the new mixing chamber of the United States.
Because it has hard work and reinvention embedded in what it is.
But is hasn't been an art capital.
It hasn't been a place that has been
Uhm, you know really driven to grow because of the arts
And I think that there's an opportunity here,
For it to grow, in leaps and bounds.
My name is Robert Elmes, I'm the director of Galapagos Art Space,
We'e from Brooklyn, NY and we moved to Detroit in 2014.
There's sort of an idea of collaboration built into the ethos of Detroit,
And the idea that you need to share information.
You know it's not a fully functioning city as you can see,
So to accomplish things in a city like that, you really need to share information and collaborate,
And I think we see that in the arts community mixed in even with the urban planning community.
My name is Ashley Hennen, I'm the executive director of the Scarab Club.
I grew up in metro Detroit, spent a bit of time out in New York,
but really couldn't stay away from this place.
Uh, so I came back about five years ago.
The Scarab club is a non-profit organization that was founded 110 years ago
By artists and art lovers who came together
to talk about art, and make art.
We are housed in a historically recognized, 1928 arts and crafts style building.
We host three gallery spaces and we have a broad artist membership.
In our building, in our lounge,
We have beams that serve as a kind of living guestbook,
And since 1928 we've had, uh, some very famous pass through
to sign their names on our beams
So we have Diego Rivera here, we have John Sloan,
Marcel Duchamp
And, and quite a few others
We see a group of artists that are moving to Detroit,
That we consider are very important
And sort of the pioneer group if you will.
It's the ones who want to get their hands dirty, who want to make community,
Who wanna communicate to each other about the opportunities that they're finding,
And collaborating, creating work,
And that's a really, uhm,
It's a golden time in the arts, right,
So the arts need three things: time, space and people
To really succeed.
And New York obviously has people with no time or space,
And Detroit has lots of space and lots of time,
and it's gaining the critical component of people
Through that you create grow a creative economy,
And when you have all three working, you have an effective creative economy
That produces good work.
Playground Detroit is an agency for creatives.
So we work specifically with artists and musicians to get them jobs and commissions,
And also teach them to be their own entrepreneurs.
So I think that this past year especially we've seen a ton of new small businesses open.
There's a lot of giftable places, or clothing stores,
But, what we're building is more of a lifestyle brand.
And, so we've had an e-commerce platform, an online magazine from, since 2012,
So we've really built our audience through that.
Really, our main mission is to retain, and attract new talent to the city,
And, also to expand the market, and audience,
So that we can be a bustling art hub internationally.
I think that art, always is the progenitor, of,
Not just cities but certain kinds of transition periods where people realize,
Through artistically minded people.
There's many things here that you can experience, that I think, might be unsual,
to someone coming from the outside.
And, uhm, I think that there's a lot of, amazing history here.
And I think that so some of the things that you find here that you don't find anywhere else;
There is definitely a trend, especially in the art world to work as community,
Organizations who work with community minded, uhm,
The movement toward social practice is very big in Detroit.
I don't know if necessarily every artist who works like that
would consider themselves a social practice artist,
But they might be labeled that from the outside.
And there is grant making institutions, that push for community based projects
But yeah, it's a big part of the changes in Detroit.
I have many friends who started, really like their own worlds
In certain neighborhoods based on this community aspect.
Turned entire houses into art projects,
Turned entire neighborhoods into art projects.
Involved the community so that, people who aren't really artists,
Or in the art world, are still, in some way, connected to the whole thing.
Galapagos is a performing arts venue; we produce theatre, dance, cinema
Music, a lot of indie classicals, science programs and TED talks,
We're really across the board, so we're not a venue that does only one thing,
And when the performance is over, we're not asking the audience to leave immediately
Right?, so we're not a traditional theatre in that sense.
We think that it's important, especially in the early part of the career
Of an artist to get a lot of feedback
About the work that they're creating
So when you can keep the audience and the artist in the same space,
You're getting a better response, a more detailed response
To the work that the artist has created.
If people come to Detroit, what I've found,
Is that people come with a certain expectation.
And some of that expectation might be met,
But I've found that a lot of people come here, and are surprised by certain things
They're surprised: -Wow! I didn't expect this-
And there's things that they find they like,
And a lot of people, especially artists, come here and find themselves
Wanting to come back.
I mean a lot of people talk about new Detroit, and old Detroit.
People think, like, that's a very long conversation to get into,
But, you know, you do start to see new Detroit
Like, through the buildings and stuff that's happening,
And there's this tension here
There is the tension between, uhm, how do we retain what we've always loved
As a city of quirky, alternative, you know, people
that didn't want mainstream, uhm, lifestyles,
And then, how do you reconcile that wish giving economic development opportunities
and, and educational opportunities to the next generation
and innovate, and actually get on the same level as the rest of the global community.
I think we have a long curve ahead of us in Detroit.
Detroit is a city really, I think, building itself and asking itself a lot of questions,
And offering an opportunity for other people who want to contribute
to come to the city,
And I think that, for that reason, it's a great city to come to and to visit,
And to put your roots in.
To like, visibly see this change happening, is super surreal
And I think it's just like, I feel so exited to be here
As it's happening.
I've always felt like every place and every city has it's time, and place
And,
Detroit is now, that's a good word,
Now is that good one word for Detroit,
For sure.
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