SUPERFRONT Detroit

Submit a 200-500 word text on Urban Farming and the Right to the City and your work may be published in SUPERFRONT’s Lab for Urban Futures publication.  See the evolving publication here.  Submit your text in the body of an email (no word docs) to detroit[at]superfront.org by December 22nd, 2011 for consideration in the final publication.

Images for consideration may be sent at 200dpi to 300dpi, no larger than 5MB per image – max 10MB total.

You may also choose to submit a text in response to the Detroit: Misresembled section 1.0 of the publication.

Deadline December 22nd.

Andrew Moore, National Time, Detroit, Michigan, 2009, photograph, 2009.

October 8, 2011 3-5pm at the Queens Museum of Art

SUPERFRONT offers a critical walk-through tour of Detroit: Disassembled that situates the aesthetic of ruination within a larger conversation about representations of Detroit and the post-industrial city.  Led by SUPERFRONT curators Chloë Bass and Mitch McEwen, this walking tour launches the Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit, an event series at the Queens Museum of Art. The tour invites viewers to actively engage with and discuss the seductive power of Andrew Moore’s images.   The question of iconography is explored in terms of the art historical references at work in Moore’s photographs, as well as through an investigation of the complex role of iconography in the contemporary urban environment.  The discussion continues with a presentation on the traveling SUPERFRONT exhibit DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY. Participants are invited to contribute their comments to an upcoming Lab for Urban Futures publication.

SUPERFRONT’s Chloë Bass + Mitch McEwen will be introducing a new event series “Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit” at the Queens Museum’s Urban Design Week event, Sept. 18, 2 – 4 PM.

The Lab consists of a series of live events and rapid publications that invite guests from a range of disciplines to consider Detroit as a provocation for new investigations and experiments in urbanism.  Co-produced by Chloë Bass and Mitch McEwen, the curators of SUPERFRONT’s traveling exhibit DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY, the series focuses on the future of city development for a post-industrial age.  From transformations in land use and waterfront activity to abandoned buildings and shifting residential populations, the post-industrial stage of capitalism has major long-term implications for American cities. Working with urban sociologists, independent media producers, food enthusiasts, agriculture activists, urban designers, architects and other urban strategists, the Lab invites the public to engage these locally-relevant issues through the lens of Detroit.

Neighbor Mr. Tarrant helps LIGHT UP! designer Ellen Donnelly with installation on site

Ellen Donnelly’s and David Karle’s LIGHT UP! project, commissioned by SUPERFRONT after winning a juried RFP process last fall, was installed at the SUPERFRONT Detroit 25 Inch plot, located at 13949 Evergreen Road. The ribbon cutting for this solar powered urban street fixture happened on Saturday with support from local neighbors.

SUPERFRONT Detroit Director Chloe Bass at LIGHT UP!

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opened Thursday, July 14 with an opening reception from 5:00 – 7:00 PM. The opening featured a live performance by the Street Poet Society, produced and costumed by Brooklyn artist Brent Birnbaum. The exhibit remains on view through August 26, 2011.

Ellen Donnelly’s and David Karle’s LIGHT UP! installation, visible above (behind the performers) at Marygrove gallery, is being installed at the SUPERFRONT Detroit 25 Inch plot, located at 13949 Evergreen Road. The ribbon cutting for this solar powered urban street fixture occurs on Evergreen Rd Saturday July 16 at 4 PM, with after party at Imagination Station, 5 – 6 PM.

Pictured above: Erin McDonald (Marygrove), Rose DeSloover (Marygrove), with Street Poet Society artists Olando Jones, Mario Pye, David Palmer, Markita Beckham, Ciarah Lee with curators Mitch McEwen, Chloe Bass, and artist Brent Birnbaum.

SUPERFRONT is proud to announce that DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opens at Marygrove College Thursday July 14 with performance by the local Street Poet Society.

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY | July 14 – August 26, 2011 | 8425 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, MI 4822

The exhibit includes works by: 596 acres, Chloë Bass, Dana Bell, Brent Birnbaum, Berenika Boberska, Brennan Buck, Lynn Cazabon, Sara Conde, Philip Dembinski, Jill Desimini, David Freeland, Aaron Jones, David Karle, Erin Kasimow, Amanda Matles, Juan Alberto Negroni, Paper Tiger TV, Kaleena Quinn, Whitney Sage, Jon Stevens, Anusha Venkataraman, Margi Weir, Audra Wolowiec, and a performance by the Street Poet Society.

Within this exhibit across art, architecture, and urban documentary, SUPERFRONT also presents the 25 Inch RFP (Request for Proposals) – results from an international call to develop new construction at SUPERFRONT’s micro property in Detroit.  Last fall SUPERFRONT invited artists and architects to propose a buildable project for 25 square inches of Detroit, located at 13949 Evergreen Rd, Detroit, Michigan, purchased in partnership with LOVELAND micro real estate. The winning entry, LIGHT UP! by Ellen E. Donnelly and David Karle, will be exhibited for the opening night only, before being installed at Everygreen Rd.

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opens July 14, with a reception from 5:00 – 7:30 PM. The opening reception features a performance produced by Brooklyn artist Brent Birnbaum in collaboration with local performers the Street Poet Society. Costumed by Birnbaum, the Street Poet Society artists will perform for fifteen minutes between 6:00 and 6:30pm. The exhibit will remain on view through August 26, 2011.

ABOUT SUPERFRONT
SUPERFRONT is a not-for-profit space for architectural experimentation and creative interdisciplinary exchange. Open in Brooklyn since January 2008, SUPERFRONT opened an additional satellite gallery at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles in the summer of 2009.

ABOUT MARYGROVE COLLEGE
Founded by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) in 1905, Marygrove College is an independent liberal arts college and a Catholic institution of higher learning committed to developing leaders for the new global society. The main campus is situated on 53 wooded acres in northwest Detroit.

8425 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, MI 48221
www.marygrove.edu

SUPERFRONT is proud to announce that DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY, an exhibit of art and conceptual architecture that focuses on Detroit as an urban situation of transformation, is traveling from SUPERFRONT LA to Detroit to be exhibited at Marygrove College this summer.

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY, an original interdisciplinary SUPERFRONT exhibit, considers Detroit both as a specific city and as a set of circumstances. Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study invites not so much a comparison of Detroit and Brooklyn but a calculated misreading. How and where might the logics or circumstances of Detroit operate in Brooklyn? At what scale of intervention or performance could Detroit and Brooklyn become indistinguishable?

This exhibit investigates Detroit as not only a given typology – the shrinking city, abandoned city, reclaimed city – but also as an everyday environment, as a specific place with specific moments. Through cartography, documentary video, architectural proposals, photography, painting and other media, DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY explores urban typology and local specificity between places both known and imagined.  From intimately personal representations of Detroit to abstract mappings or urban-scale analogies, the exhibit produces a case study and one thread of an evolving dialog between Detroit and other cities.

This exhibit is enabled by the SUPERFRONT Board of Directors with generous support from Alan Bass, Daniel Gelb, Anne Guiney, and Amy Lucker.  The exhibition is free and open to the public, and will take place in The Gallery on the fourth floor of the Liberal Arts Building at Marygrove College. Email detroit@superfront.org for more information.

SUPERTUBE YOUR CITY // DETROIT

SUPERFRONT presents SUPERtube Your City: Detroit.

From May 16 – June 30 | Detroiters are invited to use YouTube as means to create a viral think tank.  The project aims to enable citizens of Detroit to directly commission the efforts of creative designers without the centralized urban planning process.  SUPERFRONT is launching this effort to use free web video resources as a means of fostering dialog between cities and producing collaboration around shared urban concerns.

You can contribute and be part of the traveling exhibit!

—> Pick one lot, one block, one neighborhood in Detroit. Make your 1-minute video there.  Please pick topic A or B. Name your video SUPERtubeyourcityDetroit_Address_YourName

A) What’s one thing in Detroit you want to ask architects and urban planners to work on?  If you could ask an architect, urban designer, or urban planner to design or re-design anything at the place where you are making your video, what would it be?  Who would be served?

Please make it clear in the video exactly where you are with block number, street address, or neighborhood boundary.

B) You can also make a video to show architects, designers , and urban planners what already works – in one lot, one block, or one neighborhood in Detroit. Make a 1-minute video, showing what design success is under-reported at the place where you are making your video.  What makes this place work so well?  Whom does it serve?

Please make it clear in the video exactly where you are with block number, street address, or neighborhood boundary.

Upload exactly 1 minute of video to your account on YouTube, and email a link to your video to supertube@superfront.org with SUPERTube in the subject line.  Please send a link only.  Video files sent to this address, and links to other online video services will not be reviewed or shown.  Please remember to name your video SUPERtubeyourcityDetroit_Address_YourName.

All videos satisfying the SUPERTube format will be exhibited in Detroit this summer at Marygrove College during the exhibition of Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study.   In the fall, Architects, urban designers, planners nationwide will be invited to respond with designed proposals also uploaded via video on YouTube.  Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study has been on view at SUPERFRONT LA since January 2011.  The exhibit opens July 14th 2011 at Marygrove College, Detroit, MI, and will be on view for 2 months. More info here.

The Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study exhibition catalog is available for direct order, print on demand in softcover for $32.95 and hardcover for $44.95.

available for order on blurb.com | catalog design by Do Not Bend

The exhibit includes works by: Dana Bell, Brent Birnbaum, Berenika Boberska, Brennan Buck, Lynn Cazabon, Sara Conde, Philip Dembinski, Jill Desimini, Ellen E. Donnelly, Sebastian Fischbeck, David Freeland, David Karle, Erin Kasimow, Amanda Matles, Blake Morris, Juan Alberto Negroni, Paper Tiger TV, Kaleena Quinn, Jon Stevens, Brett Van Aalsburg, Anusha Venkataraman, Margi Weir, Audra Wolowiec and others.

The SUPERFRONT Detroit operation launched in 2011 under the leadership of the inimitable CHLOË BASS, Director of SUPERFRONT Detroit. Sign your name and email up for SUPERFRONT’s RFP, Competitions, and Call for Entries list here to make sure you stay in the loop on all opportunities to exhibit and collaborate. In the meantime, send your Detroit intel to chloe@superfront.org