Michael A. Williams, Associate Program Officer at The Kresge Foundation, W. Kim Heron, Senior Communications Officer at The Kresge Foundation, and Cézanne Charles of rootoftwo and AXD curator discuss the AXD art series and how Detroit artists are addressing the uncertainty and significance of this specific moment in time. The Living X podcast is hosted by Ryan Myers-Johnson, executive director of Sidewalk Detroit, and edited/mixed by Wayne Ramocan of Red Carpet Lounge. This episode features music by Pamela Wise. The Living X podcast is a product of rootoftwo and made possible with support from The Kresge Foundation.
This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
About AXD
AXD is a city-wide, multi-disciplinary series featuring twenty-two newly commissioned exhibitions, performances and events developed by alumni Kresge Artist Fellows and Gilda Awardees immersed throughout Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park. The AXD curatorial theme is Living X. Living X explores the significance, ambiguity and uncertainty of this contemporary moment. The projects highlighted in this podcast series examine what it means to live and create in these undefined times - the X.
About rootoftwo
rootoftwo, LLC is a research- and practice-driven hybrid design studio led by Cézanne Charles and John Marshall. Formed in 1998, their work engages in civic future-making, using design methods to facilitate people to imagine and shape collective actions for more just, resilient, inclusive, and adaptive futures. rootoftwo creates innovative and tangible experiences, events, artifacts, spaces, methods, and strategies that allow us to perceive ourselves, the here and now, and the future differently. For more information visit rootoftwo.com.
About the Kresge Foundation
The Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America’s cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grant, loan, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information visit kresge.org.
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INTRO:
In this episode Sign of the Times, Ryan hosts a discussion with Michael A. Williams and W. Kim Heron of the Kresge Foundation, along with Susan Charles of rootoftwo. They explorer AXD and what the series was as well as how the artists are addressing the uncertainty and significance of this specific moment in time. This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Hello, everyone my name is Ryan Myers Johnson. I'm so excited today to have a really interesting conversation with some amazing leaders in the arts and culture community in Detroit's today. We'll be joined by Cezanne Charles, Michael Williams and W. Kim Heron today.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
We could just start off with Cezanne, tell us a little bit about yourself Cezanne, your practice and how you came to be involved with our Art X Detroit?
Cezanne Charles:
Sure, thank you so much. For me Art X Detroit has been something that I've been involved with in some way, shape or form since the very first editions that happened oh so long ago, through partners at Midtown Detroit Inc while I was at ArtServe Michigan which then became Creative Many Michigan, and really evolved to sort of look at how we could support individual artists and creative practitioners in the city through a kind of body of work that grew out of our work on the Kresge Artist Fellowship Professional Practice Program. So as we started to have the opportunity to reimagine what AXD would be, as it sort of spread out into the city and focus much more on how artists could self direct and lead on projects in neighborhoods and communities.
Cezanne Charles:
It sort of seemed like a natural extension to the kind of work that we were doing to reframe the kind of social impact, and creative impact the artists were having through play space creative work. So we were excited to partner with the Kresge Foundation to reimagine that at Creative Many, and then as Creative Many folded it made sense for me to continue in a curatorial and producer role for that series through rootoftwo.
Cezanne Charles:
So my creative practice is rootoftwo and through that I've been curating, and doing work in the built environment for a long time to support kind of artists and creativity kind of at that grassroots neighborhood level. So I was excited to continue to think about and imagine a series of projects by artists... 22 projects initially commissioned by artists all across Detroit neighborhoods and cities for 2019 and extending into 2020. So that's a little bit about me, it's a lot but I will just say it's been 12 years of really listening and learning from artists on the ground in Detroit.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
How amazing and important this work is now more than ever working deeply within our neighborhoods and working directly with artists on their vision. I guess as we talk about working in neighborhoods, Kim perhaps you could tell us a bit about your background and also what Kresge is trying to do here with this neighborhood based work?
Kim Heron:
Well, I was really lucky to... before I came to Kresge I was managing editor then editor at Metro Times, and I was on the committee that was put together out of college for Creative Studies that created Kresge Arts in Detroit, and kind of just helped design the program... and from the very beginning it was really impressive in terms of the diligence and care that they took in putting together. This is about the original advisory board and kind of listening to the ideas and giving feedback and kind of it was a very fast and iterative process. So I was there before the first eminent artist was named and then a year later the Kresge Artists Fellows began. So then I came to Kresge four or five years later in 2013.
Kim Heron:
So it's really great to watch the process as it launched from the outside, and then I was actually lucky enough to be called backed once on one of the creative... One of the eminent artists panels year that Bill Harris was selected, but it was great to be on the outside of the process and then coming right into the middle of the process working for Kresge, and seeing that the concern kind of is really at the heart of the foundation. That they really believe in that art is essential to having a vital community, that it's not just about arts institutions. So it's not just about bigger art institutions but institutions of all sizes, but even beyond that there's a real concern and a real care for the fact that artists are what you need for art, which may seem axiomatic [crosstalk 00:05:18] but it isn't always a priority, let's put it like that and just support for artists as artists-
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Yeah.
Kim Heron:
Not for art projects. I mean... So it's been great to be able to watch the Eminent Artist program and the fellows and the Gilda and then to see it take this new step with [inaudible 00:05:42] which was all in Midtown, kind of evolved into this new thing that kind of brought together Kresge's community development lens, and concern for community revitalization along with support for artists and very much and say here are some tools, here is some support go forth and see how you can insert this into the community.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Awesome. Awesome. So thank you for showing us and telling us your kind of deep roots in the Detroit's art community and working with the Kresge artists fellows, these individual artists working throughout Detroit as well as eminent artists, some of our senior and elder artists who have been holding it down for a really long time. So thank you for giving us that background and Michael you are coming to Detroit and to this foundation with kind of the new perspective of things, and I imagine you're right in the thick of all of this change of COVID and Black Lives Matter. So how is the foundation responding to these new elements in regards to working with individual artists?
Michael Williams:
Yeah, I mean that's right. I think I came in at a very specific moment when I came to the arts work and to where Detroit is at as a place, but not new to Detroit definitely a native son of this city born and raised on the west side. But after my time away in New York and then Boston and then returning to this city and particularly to Kresge, was that sort of like this inflection point in the city where we started to see very demonstrable and measure a set of new investments in the city, as well as alumni new businesses, the landscape changing for which it's up for debate, right? How we measure [inaudible 00:07:42] consider success or not, but for sure a new moment.
Michael Williams:
I think part of why I came back and part of what made Kresge a good decision for me professionally was like this understanding that you don't really have a place or a city without investing in arts, and investing in culture because that's the soul of the place. Like Kim said I think that Kresge specifically and Kresge arts in Detroit understood that, if you're just very direct investing in artists and investing in organizations that's how you create a strong ecosystem. At least that's like the bedrock of it, and so when it comes to AXD even though I came in and there's newer iteration I don't have as much as the background of Art X Detroit, I think I immediately kind of understood this like retooling about how artists can really respond to place.
Michael Williams:
I think what we found was like our artists fellows they took that some both literally and then some both figuratively, through their own sort of like artistic lens to interpret that but I think resoundingly it helped to just either kick off or just like further deepen a conversation that we're all having in this city about what makes up a city and its people? How should the neighborhoods look like? How do artists and creators respond to this moment? What is their role? How do we all engage around this? And I think what we got was like a bunch of different interesting conversation from these different projects, which is... and it's a forever obviously evolving dynamic when it comes to Detroit's future, especially as you mentioned because of how COVID has already changed the landscape and how it's going to forever shape it going forward.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
I didn't know you're from the west side so am I.
Michael Williams:
Yeah, born and raised [inaudible 00:09:27] Redford area. Yeah, I grew up on St. Mary's street.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
You grew up really close to me. Yeah, like really close to Asbury Park so [inaudible 00:09:37] All right, west side so there are all these really amazing neighbors just like any city obviously, but being born and raised here in Detroit I just can't help but to be awed by the diversity of our neighborhoods and our communities and the challenge... the unique challenges that each of these neighborhoods and communities are facing. What do you think the role of artists is in sort of confronting some of the place based challenges that Detroit has dealt with like the housing crises and blight? Those sort of things... Gentrification. What role do you see art playing and kind of addressing some of those issues? Is that specific enough?
Cezanne Charles:
I think so. I mean I think for me what it comes down to is the capacity for artists to act as storytellers and holders and keepers, but also for them to sort of imagine more preferable more just futures and ways of living and ways of organizing and ways of relating to one another. So it's this ability for... we have an artist collective that created work as part of AXD that talk about this ability to sort of time travel, right? In the sense that they work both reflectively looking back and holding space for what was important, what has gone before or what needs to be attended to in a neighborhood, in a community. So that's speaking to that generational wisdom but then also the capacity to actually say what needs to be fixed now, and imagine ways of organizing both people and labor and opportunity differently in order to take action in the present, all while still holding space for a future that is better than the one that they have right now. I just... I think it's that capacity to move back and forth between those conditions and those states, that makes me heartened by the way that artists work in community and work differently in community than maybe other professions do.
Kim Heron:
Yeah, I think that really hits it and I think it's kind of a couple levels that it happens that I mean, one is kind of the artist's kind of commenting on community but also I think there's a whole... another element of the place of artists helping to create spaces for community. I remember I had a conversation with Marion Hayden when she was trying to find out where her project was going to be, and actually I can't remember where it finally ended up but she really wanted... she's I think in the Highland Park right near the border, and she really wanted to push us in spaces where there had not been art presentations before, and it makes art not something... I don't know, when you have it in a specific place in a neighborhood it takes away from the idea that it's... it root's it in a way. I mean it doesn't... it's something that organically [inaudible 00:12:52] Detroit... I spent a lot of time in 70s... beginning in the early 80s talking to jazz musicians and a lot of them kind of rued the day when we're old enough... at that time to rue the day when everybody got their television because it kind of undercut the idea that [inaudible 00:13:13] to see entertainment obviously you had your radio but if you wanted to see entertainment, one of the big things you could do was there was a neighborhood bar that had music.
Kim Heron:
I mean the Blue Bird Inn... I know there's a big effort to save that, was known throughout the city and I guess even back then jazz buffs around the country knew about it, but also it was a neighborhood bar where you could go to see... if you were very lucky you could go to see Miles Davis, and later people like Joe Henderson and all this. So I think there's a sort of a bet that place thing... that entertainment and culture can have these great manifestations within walking distance or biking distance, or a short drive and it's not something you have to travel to a big institution or a big place to see, it can be down the corner.
Michael Williams:
Yeah, and I think... I mean I agree with like those two perspectives and I always say I think you can take it from several different angles. I mean in one sense artists themselves they're citizens of a place and they're just like residents and community members. In another sense I don't place the burden of city building or responsible city building on artists, particularly just because they're living in a place like Detroit, but obviously if you're engaging in forms of like social practice or public art space making, then I think there is a context and maybe some principles for which you can incorporate how you choose to engage in a community and with residents nearby you. Then in like another sense I mean I think there is... especially given how Detroit has been shaped like the artists becomes kind of like city shaper at... as culture bearer and what is Detroit without its arts and culture scenes economically, socially wherever we... how do we even be the place of like resistance and revolution that we've been, which is another moment we're kind of going through without the role of artists.
Michael Williams:
So I think there's like many pathways for artists to intersect, but I think then a place like Detroit it has... there's... I would say it's a... there is a platform for which they can have like an elevated role in shaping our communities, simply because of the need for it and because the makeup of Detroit at least in the last number of decades has been like it's a culturally centric and rooted place. Then because it's a very black and brown [inaudible 00:15:37] Hispanic place and those cultures are very culturally loaded. So I think that does give a platform of artists which to engage further here in terms of like, community or city shaping and building.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Wow, so many amazing statements. I'm just sitting here writing down notes and thinking about the artist roles. Cezanne you mentioned the artists' role and I imagine in a more just future, and I think that the future is something that right now we're all trying to imagine and predict and there's so much change going on. So I'm just wondering is there a convergence between some of these statements and the future that artists are imagining, and the Kresge Foundation's role in sort of making those things happen? So to be more concise now's the time of change, and now's the time of legislative change and we wonder what will the next few years look like in the city of Detroit as we deal with the economic repercussions of our current situation? And we have artists who are making comments on the... on a more socially just future. So what perspective is the Kresge taking on this type of... on this moment?
Michael Williams:
First and foremost I think as consistent investors in arts and culture in the city we had to make sure that the people who make up the space survive and can recover as well as the city does. But we know that artists and arts organizations are actually some of the hardest hit people by coronavirus, by social distancing measures because it's a whole sector based on engagement. So I think we're definitely... now, I think I know we're definitely committed to A, helping the sector survive and I think that's what influenced some of our recent investments, and to the artists and arts and culture... Arts and culture relief fund that was held at the community foundation for southeastern Michigan, for which cost resource lead as an art intermediary and then our recent investment in the Metro Solutions artists relief fund as well.
Michael Williams:
I think like going forward we're just super interested in working with artists, creatives and our partners on the role that artists can play and in... our primary [inaudible 00:18:01] community development, so in the recovery of the city. One thing we think about is how can artists maintain a place in Detroit? And also maybe not just want to like come here but how can they stay? So that speaks to issues of affordability of housing and space in place. So right now for example we're very much in conversation with like the Marygrove Conservancy, which has been a big part of Kresge's signature investments in that space on various fields and issue areas. About how that campus could also be a creative campus open to delivering a six mile area where it is, but also like generally to the city to have facilities for artists.
Michael Williams:
So that's like one main consideration and yet the other is of course I think how artists play a role in like community engaged design and neighborhood building as well. Some of that work has already started off through whether it was city mandated efforts or like the community groups and CDC's, Community Development Corporations that were leading on neighborhood revitalization, about how artists could be like inserted into the effort of community planning, but I think we also now want to have probably more serious conversations about how artists are inserted, how they can not only get work but be a part of again preserving that soul of a place in those neighborhoods, even as they change and hopefully change for the better.
Kim Heron:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree and I think we've kind of tried to... through the investments and direct investments in artists is really kind of elevate them. I think it's pretty clear that this position of artists in the city is... it has improved considerably [inaudible 00:19:39] but there is a lot more foundation support for artists and a real effort to push arts into this more... into the Civic sphere, for government and design and planning to listen to arts and really bring it into the conversation. As I say it and I think Michael hit it though I mean one of the first things we do we've been working with grantees on their ability to affect change in cities. One of the first orders of business in this crisis have been to say what can we do to help the grantees, to help artists in this case survive? And help lead us on to the next step. So, one of the things we did was to all of the grantees not just the art sectors we gave new flexibility to say, "We gave you X... you gave us this plan and we said here's your money. Things are changing so rapidly we're going to trust you a great deal to say how you should redirect the funds.
Kim Heron:
Whether that means just not doing X and keeping the lights on instead." At Kresge Arts in Detroit a lot of that... some of that turned into new efforts to actually pay artists for contributions to a new website that allows them to further share, and they work with each other and with the community and in the... It was just last week when we announced the new round of Kresge Fellows and Gilda artists. Usually we do... typical year we do 18 Fellows and two Gilda Awards, this year we made it even 20 added two more to the Fellows but we took it from two to 10 for the Gilda Awards just to get some more money into that sector.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Yeah, that type of unrestricted funding to individual artists is pretty critical. I think the ASCII Arts in Detroit program is one of the few grams city not even the nation that offers this unrestricted money to individuals. We find a lot of arts funding is restricted to nonprofit organizations, leaving some time individual artists out so ready to commend the Kresge Foundation on up in their commitment to supporting individual artists. Michael, you mentioned a couple of things in relationship to place into the artists in relationship to city building and city shaping. So those conversations are of particular interest to me given our work was hide rock Detroit, just kind of intersecting those spaces. So I find that Detroit is this really interesting place that calls for individual artists to be very aware of place.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Is there room for artists to just be artists and not think about community development or community revitalization or not? Or maybe it's just the value that comes out more in Kresge artist... the Kresge Artist Fellows but I find that in our conversation with the Kresge Artist Fellows that they were so deeply rooted within their communities, and neighborhoods that they were in fact doing some of this work of city shaping storytelling and city building. So, is that the place that Arts in Detroit is going today? Or is that more just the ideology of the foundation?
Michael Williams:
I think from a Kresge perspective there's... undoubtedly I think we have an orientation towards place for sure, and I think we've created... a hallmark of our funding programs have been around like community development and comprehensive city building. So I think we are informed that's like our place of orientation from we start at like that kind of like informs our perspective, but for sure I think Kresge Arts in Detroit but the origins of it as we see now is uncommitted support for artists who happen to be in the city and in Metro Detroit, but it's not... there's no sort of requirement there to do things that directly connect to community development. I think the conversation really is around like for those who wish to enter into that realm, and to partake in the ways that they engage space, plays, social practice sometimes like political issues.
Michael Williams:
Then there... I think it should be sort of like engagement discourse principles that individuals and maybe that organizing bodies take up that say, "Hey, these are some of the values we're going to take when entering place, how you engage with community members, how you think about residents, or think about the effects that public art may have and development." Because I mean very much what's happening in Detroit in cities elsewhere, art isn't just served as a purely positive tool for place making and by the intention of the artists, but it's very much been co-opted as a tool for evaluating on commercial development... real estate development which could have two potentially harmful effects, especially depending on the context of the neighborhoods for which like the public art is taking place and the development is taking place.
Michael Williams:
So I think it's... I think when it comes to engage artists that choose to engage in the place aspect, I think we want to have that conversation of both as a resident but also being as a funder in art sector about how do we do that thoughtfully and respectfully.
Kim Heron:
Yeah, I was thinking in Detroit there's a real tradition... actually I'm more familiar with the music world, but I know it extends into visual arts and a certain extent into literary arts. It was a real DIY tradition that goes way back, so I mean it's not like we pushed artists entirely into this area. Last year... no, I guess two years back, right? Two years back our eminent artist was Wendell Harrison, and one of his big contributions was an organization called Tribe which he was a co-founder and it really said, "We musicians are not being served by the system... by the music industry whatever you want to call it, and it's up to us to create our own record label, to create our own opportunities for presenting our music," And that was really part of a number of other organizations in the city that were doing similar things and really across the country with various orientations like the Association Advancement Creative Musicians in Chicago, and the Black Artists' Group in St. Louis and again quite a few others.
Kim Heron:
So I think we're really building on something that was there already, once again it wasn't just out of a jazz world. I mean during the whole punk era there was a real DIY, I think that's when I first actually knew that term DIY from, it was really coming from those ground up musical things and artists had been involved and visual arts involved in starting their own gallery. So we're not to say that's the only way to approach art but there is a strong tradition of that particular in this city that it really behooves us to build on.
Cezanne Charles:
Yeah, and I'll just pick up on that and say that I think what I perceive is that there's a degree both intentional and not intentional, around the way that artists in the city have had to be involved in infrastructuring and that same sense of like they have to build their own galleries, they have to build their own record labels, they have to build their own literary presses and then they share those resources out with one another, right? To sort of create this platform where all ships can kind of rise with the tide and I think that's an industriousness that is actually born of this place.
Cezanne Charles:
It is... certainly there are other places that similarly artists self organize to create opportunities for themselves and platforms for themselves, but the degree to which that seems to be part of the way that artists operate, and maybe they're doing it under resourced, under partnered, under leveraged and maybe that's where you talk about how this work spreads out is what can we do to sort of take what is good and evident about the way that artists are willing to work, and figure out what platforms they need to sort of be supported to do that work well.
Cezanne Charles:
But I think there is a... within a sort of cohort of AXD artists there are artists who made performances, and it would have looked like any other performance in any other hall, but they were doing it in their neighborhood, right? So they're not necessarily doing community development, they're not necessarily doing socially engaged practice, they're not doing participatory practices in the way that we might think about, but what they are doing is contributing to narrative shift and holding space for the stories that come from those places, right? So if we pick up on like Marion's work, it was really about being able to capture and transform the stories of her neighbors, her family, her residents, her community into something that was part of her creative and aesthetic gifts, right? And then displaying that back out in the community where those stories come from, right? So I think it's broadening the definition of what we think of in social practice because it isn't always towards a place based development end, but it is almost always about enriching our understanding of place through their work.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Those are just a really great visions and kind of thinking about Detroit really as we are that city that hustles harder, and artists are a part of that hustle in a huge way. So, given that Detroit has this really strong DIY aesthetic, and artists are out there making the work happen for themselves as we attract more and more new development, and more investment in our neighborhoods. Do you see that hustle harder DIY ability growing? Or what sort of challenges might we need to think about as artists continue to try to make their own spaces and create their own work, but they're competing with people who are working on an international level and development have really deep pockets?
Cezanne Charles:
I guess I'll talk about one of the things that we've spoken about before is this idea of what is the equivalent of gen ops for artists, and I don't know any city anywhere in any country I've lived in that has really tackled that question super well. But I think it's a question of are we asking artists and creators to have more precarity in their sources of income, in their sources of stability, in their sources of employment in their sources of healthcare, then we're asking of any other source of sort of labor within a city and then if we're looking at it that way, what are the kind of instruments that we can do to support that? And I think certainly Michael has mentioned that there are ways that other intermediary organizations are beginning to think about what are the pipelines for smaller organizations... smaller artists led organizations to sort of get grassroots funding, that then allows them to build that kind of track record and access increasing larger funds, but I don't... I mean I think that there are complications in the system.
Cezanne Charles:
I mean without shying away from it the idea that most of those things still require... not all but most still require a 501(c)(3) fellowships being exception some of the other sort of challenge awards being exceptions. I think that there's just a fundamental question about can we support artists as they legally are, right? I mean we find ways to support artists as they are, and in lots of other ways through like fellowships and things, but can we also support them legally within the context of being for profit, or in the context of needing to make a living and a life as one of our friends and colleagues in Minneapolis talks about making a living and a life doing what you love at Springboard for the arts? Can we really fully encompass what that would mean and what that would take?
Kim Heron:
Now and I think there's some hope as development spreads around, if it spreads in a certain way. So I remember people would say, "What's the next Midtown?" Well, we really don't want there to be a next Midtown. We don't want to have like one neighborhood that becomes a concentration and that heavily capitalize certain logic that we're... where resources can kind of flow so intensely into a neighborhood that it changes very dramatically, it does not allow for the original residents to the extent that they should and any kind of... the worst case scenario is just sequentially moving through the city and overly doing one neighborhood after another. So we want to see like multiple nodes of development around the city and I think that actually helps undermine and create more space, or opportunities for artists to remain in place not be totally quickly priced out of places if that makes sense.
Michael Williams:
Absolutely, I was thinking to that point about affordability like immediately. I was just seeing... I saw in the news that the last couple of days or within the last week 11 mayors mostly black, had signed on to a letter and launched a website about their commitment for universal guaranteed income in their cities. I mean I can't think of a place like Detroit that isn't more ripe for that, which would obviously help artists first and foremost but just the fact that we have a majority low income population, and a huge population that's employed in the service sector in the city and in the surrounding suburbs. So just A, providing standard income because a lot... I know a number of my artist friends who freelance or who work in the service industry to aid themselves, while they also promote their artwork and craft their work.
Michael Williams:
So one is... I mean that would be a fantastic policy but I think along those lines the more we can get greater resources for example what we did with [inaudible 00:34:43] and increasingly awards is definitely going to create a bigger dent for just more opportunities over the next couple of years to artists in the city, but more funding can't hurt at all. So, the more we can create whether it's grant opportunities or buying technical assistance support will be great. For example, I know another org that's launching United Artists of Detroit that's sort of [inaudible 00:35:12] advocacy arm but a promotion arm, as well as just an organizing arm for artists. So the more there can just be collective organizing and get those artists whether more materials, or whether it's housing and resources is going to be huge. [inaudible 00:35:26] I think of advocacy a lot and so the first... over last year the city kind of reinstated. So I shouldn't say it's like the first time we've had an office of arts and culture, but more so reinstated an office of arts and culture at the city level.
Michael Williams:
So that's a big deal for Detroit because we just haven't had an arts council or our arts office or department, and a lot of major cities have that which equal guaranteed resources for both artists and arts and culture organizations. So at that... while that office is still getting started off the ground I'm assuming like that's why [inaudible 00:36:00] we can continue to support artist having a voice when it comes to the city level, city funding, how public art rolls out and other policies like percent for art that again create more opportunities and give more resources for artists, and like I said I think development plays a role too thinking about facilities and spaces for artists.
Michael Williams:
At Convention, I think we have obviously neighborhoods that have higher values and have seen more concentrated investment in the city, but it's a pretty big footprint but I think it's a matter of looking at what facilities do artists have, what housing is available and whether it's us as funders or in the development community or the city kind of think putting our heads together around maybe what artists housing facilities look like, and how we can make... again what maybe that's [inaudible 00:36:51] like Marygrove or other places unique real estate assets that could function and maybe be like preserved affordable spaces for artists to have a place in the city.
Cezanne Charles:
Yeah, and I think it's definitely also about... there are things that you can only do locally to benefit the local. There's also stuff that you can only do at the statewide and at the national level in order to sort of benefit the local, and it's like how do you make sure that there're voices at each of those levels that are trying to imagine the kind of policies we need that maybe we don't have, or maybe some of the policies that kind of snuck in through COVID that now we would like them to sort of persist as they move forward? Like if we can reorganize our government on the fly in order to do one time payments for universal basic income, then that's a wedge to say maybe this wasn't far fetched. Whereas like I did a panel of artists and economists a couple years ago where if you'd said universal basic income, it was as if like you were asking for like a return to Neverland or something like totally fantastical, right? And now some of those things are practical, some of the ways that we've rethought about self employment in terms of insurance and unemployment how do we sort of get to keep some of these things, which maybe were clearly hastily put together to sort of be a patch on our very leaky social safety net, but how did they not become patches and permanent fixes?
Cezanne Charles:
So I know like at a national level there's a group of sort of people that have been getting together on monthly calls to think about how to keep creative workers working, or get creative workers working and some of that is about communicating but it's also about who are people that we can stand in solidarity with? What other partnerships can we form outside of the arts with other gig workers that allow us to all with one voice talk about affordability, right? In our homes and in our insurances and in our lives? So that's where I sort of take where we get to go next with some of this stuff as artists in solidarity with all of these other movements for change that allow us to keep some of the things that maybe we got through this very rough patch.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Okay, I'm ready to vote for you Cezanne for whatever you're running for. [inaudible 00:39:17] Yes.
Michael Williams:
I think the other thing I would just throw in there is arts education is big. I remember talking with Camilla Henderson who's at the Community Foundation. She looked it up... it seems so basic when you say it but it's so powerful that a lot of times some of our artists... these are individuals who like to move to a place and then when it's maybe not serving them they can exit no one's tying them down. However, if you invest in art education you're literally like investing in the pipeline of creatives in your place. So I know it was a huge deal than the last year to see like the Detroit Public Schools Community District kind of reinstate their arts programming and know something like that is now obviously in flux with coronavirus and how we still kind of wait to see what officially happens. Whether students will be fully in school or partly or virtually but even obviously there're other organizations that work... that do like the after school programming as well. So like investing in our youth so that they can be exposed into arts and culture or incorporating them for example, one thing we talked a lot about Kresge is how we incorporate children and families now into the design of neighborhoods.
Michael Williams:
So like designs introduced them at a young age and they have like agency and power, and they're exposed to these like tools and opportunities to shape and use arts and culture to shape their own neighboring communities. I think that's a big deal and how we kind of create a pipeline so that artists may not just come and go but to see Detroit as a creative place and we invest in that.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
That was just really well said I feel so inspired by all of the visions that have been put forth in regards to Detroit artists, from artists imagining just [inaudible 00:41:02]some universal basic income to designing with children and families eight to 80 years old in mind, you guys have me feeling optimistic in a very apocalyptic time so good on you. The work that artists in Detroit are doing, the work that the artists have presented with Art X Detroit is amazing and the things and visions that they have for the city, lots of synergy here, lots of big visions. So with that I just want to invite everybody to let us know where you're coming from, where you're recording from and to [inaudible 00:41:42] I'm Ryan Myers Johnson recording from Eight Mile & Evergreen, see you.
Cezanne Charles:
I'm Cezanne and unfortunately I'm recording from Ann Arbor, also known as flatland. My heart is in Detroit, I miss all of the family and community that's there. I wish I could say I was a local but I'm a Dayton girl, so thanks very much.
Kim Heron:
You're an adopted local Cezanne.
Michael Williams:
Yeah, you've earned your [inaudible 00:42:14] Cezanne for sure.
Kim Heron:
This is Kim Heron from Elmwood Park.
Michael Williams:
And Michael Williams, I was talking to y'all from Corktown.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Thanks everyone.
Cezanne Charles:
Thanks everyone.
Michael Williams:
Thank you.
Kim Heron:
Thanks Ryan, Michael-
Michael Williams:
Thanks everybody.
Ryan Myers Johnson:
Thanks.
Kim Heron:
Cezanne.
OUTRO:
AXD Living X podcast is a production of rootoftwo and made possible with support from the Kresge Foundation. Mixed and edited by Red Carpet Lounge, music for the series is by Pamela Wise. To find out more about the projects and artist visit Artxdetroit.com and download the companion Living X catalog featuring all 22 commissioned AXD works.