Above: Previous Allied Media Conference participants. Photo by Ara Howrani, courtesy of Allied Media Projects. There is nothing like the spring-to-summer transition in Detroit to watch the art scene explode in a flurry of activity. The unseasonably warm and humid temperatures that scorched the Detroit Metro area over Memorial Day […]
Detroit’s literary scene is booming. Last week, two local authors held book launches for work that touches deeply on some of the most difficult and most real parts of being human, being black and being female: Desiree Cooper debuted a collection of flash fiction, “Know the Mother,” while Casey Rocheteau–the […]
2013 Detroit Knight Arts Challenge winner Hatch is a collective in Hamtramck, Mich. that brings together the work of many artists, each with different perspectives and approaches. The latest is the work of Kasper Ray O’Brien, whose solo installation, “Show Me Love,” might be termed a “body of work” in […]
Still frame from “Time I Change,” a local film featuring Detroit-based Haleem “Stringz” Rasul. Image courtesy of Oren Goldenberg and Cass Corridor Films. On Feb. 29, arts writer and lover-of-dance Matthew Piper marked the occasion with “Leap Night!”–a lovely collection of short dance films that were screened at Play House […]
Founded in New Jersey in 2011 by Danielle Wright, Opera Modo is Detroit’s newest operatic institution. This weekend was the opening of “Carmen,” Opera Modo’s fifth production since moving to Detroit in 2013. Made possible by a Knight Arts Challenge grant, the first two of four performances took place this […]
Artist Olayami Dabls is best known for the African Bead Museum and its surrounding sprawling sculptural installation, for which he received a $100,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant. Relatively unknown were a series of figurative watercolors, all depicting nude figures, that he began painting in 2011, creating as many as 75 […]
The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers is an organization that seeks to promote connectivity, understanding and humanity through the sharing of honest personal stories–a mission that is supported in part by a $30,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant. The society achieved a triumphant actualization of its goals on Nov. 5, packing […]
Everyone is already buzzing with anticipation for the third annual Sidewalk Festival of Performing Arts, which takes place in Detroit’s vibrant Old Redford and Brightmoor neighborhoods. An area devastated by the mass exodus from the city, Brightmoor has quietly transformed itself into a utopia of urban gardens, public green spaces […]