Last Shuttle Launch

Photo Courtesy of NASA
I grew up in the era of space launch, an achievement and industry that also fed my Southern California existence.

My childhood on the westside of Los Angeles, while now known for it's high-priced living, was that of living among the engineers and scientists working at Douglas, Rand, Lockheed and the myriad of aerospace and flight industries who populated the Southern California landscape. One of my parent's best friends was the inventor of the atomic clock and evenings spent in his presence were always memorable, one time sitting with him on the bench of a Hammond Company organ, shipped to him by Hammond to just "tinker" around.

Los Angeles was then dependant on just two main industries: aerospace and movies. They both offered employment to thousands/millions(?) of residents and brought others to this land. With the loss of aerospace, other business fills part of the gap but it continues to be an adjustment, not dissimilar to that with which my other hometown, Detroit, has struggled in order to evolve from its one-industry mode to an attractive destination for business and jobs.

July 14th - Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study

I earlier posted about the SUPERFRONT exhibit and conference, DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY, when it was installed in Los Angelers. Curated by Chloë Bass and MitchMcEwen, it is a wonderfully inventive, piercing and thought-provoking look not only at the issues of Detroit but those facing other urban areas.

The exhibition and discussions are finally coming to Detroit. I recommend this heartily!

SUPERFRONT is proud to announce that DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opens at Marygrove College Thursday July 14

The exhibit includes works by: Chloë Bass, Dana Bell, Brent Birnbaum, Brennan Buck, Lynn Cazabon, Sara Conde, Philip Dembinski, Jill Desimini, David Freeland, David Karle, Erin Kasimow, Amanda Matles, Juan Alberto Negroni, Paper Tiger TV, Kaleena Quinn, Jon Stevens, Anusha Venkataraman, Margi Weir, Audra Wolowiec and others.

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 Evergreen Rd. The selecting jury for the 25 inch proposals included Paul Amitai (New York), Andrea Bauza Hernandez (San Juan), Christina Heximer (Detroit), Jerry Paffendorf (Detroit), and Craig L. Wilkins, PhD AIA, ARA, (Detroit).

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opens July 14, with a reception from 5:00 – 7:30 PM. The exhibit will remain on view through August 26, 2011.

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY | July 14 – August 26, 2011 | 8425 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, MI 48221

Cool Detroiters

From a post on Detroit Nation, a terrific group of Detroit ex-Pats who love their city and have been organizing meetings and visits to "give back:"

This cool Flash Mob scene at Detroit River Days by Michigan BlueCrossBlueShield employess, sporting t-shirts with "At home in the D."

Michigan Blue Cross Flash Mob at Detroit River Days

The music "beeKoo Mix" by Laswell http://ccmixter.org/files/lazztunes07/12238

So Many Projects, So Little Time

It is a month tomorrow since I returned from my second visit to Detroit, the spring trip where I discovered that "spring" in the MidWest is not quite what I expected: cold and rainy with only the beginning - but what a beginning! - of flowers sprouting, alternating with the sense of summer's hot, humid days. Actually liked them both except when I was over in Windsor, Canada photographing for the Finding Chinatowns project and it was 44 degrees, windy and raining. My Southern California thin skin was throbbing with the painful cold and, I've learned, again, that when one returns across a border and is asked what one was doing in a foreign country, NOT to say that I was "shooting!" Luckily a border agent with a sense of humor who asked me how many people I killed. "Photographing," Sara, not "shooting." I remember this in airports but here, hmmmmm....

But it is a month and I've not even had a moment to look through my photographs from the trip for it has been so very - wonderfully - busy on my two other ongoing projects: readying for the solo show this summer on FINDING CHINATOWNS and meeting several deadlines on the continuing project photographing and documenting in part the construction of the incredible 747 Wing House almost finished at the top of Malibu. A lot of what I am learning on that house, especially in terms of the complexity of shooting architecture, is being applied to my work in Detroit for Detroit is about buildings, the environment and those who pass through them. Each time I visit, I find that the challenges of place relate back to what is happening there. In fact, cannot wait until I can get into these spring pics, hopefully this next week now that I have the exhibition and printing in production.

In the interim, this past Thursday, 16 June, Sam Lubell of the Architect's Newspaper has written up and published in the A/N Blog a "Sneak Peek" of the 747 Wing House, using some of my photographs.

The Hub

Detroit is crawling with terrific media. In just these past few months stories from, of course, the venerable Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and best of all, the online news blogs and radio including The Detroit Hub, Model D and WEDT (101.9fm), an active NPR station out of Wayne State University. From a variety of perspectives, catching up with the real news has so changed the view of this city from the caricature depicted outside to that of a vibrant city filled with character, will and strength within.

From just this morning rummaging around The Urban News Hub, both present and past:

25 June 2010 YOU CAN GET FUNDED IN METRO DETROIT: LIVIO RADIO
25 July 2010 WHAT TO GIVE DETROIT FOR ITS 309th BIRTHDAY
and best of all, today
17 June 2011 DEAR WORLD: SMART KIDS LIVE IN DETROIT .... JUST SO YOU KNOW reporting on the number of terrific, "smart" college-going kids who just are graduating from the Detroit Public Schools.

Kunsthalle Detroit

With a strong background in contemporary art, I absolutely applaud yet another terrific sign of Detroit's ascension again: the opening of the Kunsthalle Detroit http://www.kunsthalle-detroit.org/#!

In a neighborhood west of Wayne State, Kunsthalle Detroit is starting off with a spectacular exhibition of some of the more prominent video artists. Not all from Detroit yet the show is making a statement for this city where so many artists are flocking, listening no doubt to Patti Smith (see Times blog below), as well as their own always avant-garde instincts. Detroit's combination of an easier cost of living for always financially-strapped artists while being a place where the history, amazing and tough, combined with aestheitc perception and expression provides a symbiotic fertile ground for innovation and growth.

In her Times blog, "Go to Detroit, Young People," Detroit writer Karen Dybis quotes David Byrne: "The skies here are bigger than in New York."

I love periodically returning to the city at this time and historically, wasn't this a similar experience in those early days of Ford and others that too provided a growth moment - a long moment - for this city? It's happening again.

Check out the Kunsthalle's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kunsthalle-Detroit/108340745867164

And the video of the opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em3iCTBnol4

some other press on the Kunsthalle:
New museum, Kunsthalle Detroit, to open exhibition space
Video art museum takes shine to Detroit's gritty charm
Art museum to open in rough section of Detroit
A New Cultural Light in Detroit

Reclaiming the industrial waterfront

The riverview in Detroit is incredibly beautiful with the flowing Detroit River, a bridge to Belle Isle, and the across river view of Windsor, Canada, the only point in the United States where Canada is south. The riverfront was formerly filled with industrial buildings but now a public walkway is developed and even during my rainy Spring visit, while at the Hoedown in Hart Plaza, I looked down on so many on promenade.



So I love this news from the Architect's Newspaper blog:
Now Docking: Detroit's evolving waterfront gets new terminal building.



Detroit is filled with significant architecture and it looks like this little building will add to the mix.

An organization worth checking out, one bringing Detroiters already and hopefully a burgeoning tourism to Detroit: The Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, responsible already for the three-mile walkway. http://www.detroitriverfront.org/ and the Dequindre Cut Greenway, an urban recreational path.