photo by noah morrison
what inspired did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in again?
since my big land art road trip in early 2020--just before covid locked us down--i have been deeply infatuated with prehistoric and modern earthworks. i knew that it was only a matter of time before i would experiment with the idea in my work...but little did i know that my friends brenna and eric at detroit denim would be the catalyst for my first earthworks to happen so soon.
during the lockdown in early spring 2020, detroit denim began producing PPE for frontline workers, and as a result, were staring at heaps of blue hospital gown fabric scraps. around this time, design core detroit's call for installations for detroit month of design went out, and brenna and eric were moved to apply, including me in their application. the first i heard of it was when they were accepted and coyly asked if i was interested in collaborating. of course i was.
brenna and i began a conversation about what we both found interesting and what was appropriate for our current socially-distanced culture. i shared my love of mounds and learned it was mutual. brenna then shared a story about visiting her grandfather's farm and watching the fields of grain wave in the wind. we combined the ideas with grassy mounds as a resting place to observe a flowing oceanic field of blue fabric—the scrap from PPE production.
in 2019, i had purchased empty lots from the detroit land bank, and during quarantine, i was so thankful for the outdoor activity of cleaning up the land. while i was working, a neighbor introduced herself as pat lane, and told me she had been taking care of the lots for over 30 years. we struck up a quarantine friendship—which usually looked like me sitting on the sidewalk in front of her house while she sat on her porch and told me stories about the neighborhood. as i got to know her, an idea came to me, and i asked her if i could rename the park after her. she accepted graciously.
on september 5th, 2020, we held a very small ribbon cutting ceremony of 7 masked people and the park was renamed and officially re-opened to the public as pat lane park, at 699 w. philadelphia in the piety hill neighborhood in detroit’s new center.
have you had the experience where a device isn’t working, and someone suggests unplugging it for 30 seconds? and you always roll your eyes, but it always works? sometimes, in order to be productive and do meaningful, hard work, we must rest and reset. for design core detroit’s month of design, brenna and i offered a space as a place of rest—the rest necessary to continue the work of staying safe during the pandemic, and the hard work of staying active in the global movement toward racial equity and climate action. the park continues to be open to the public.
please, come enjoy pat lane park whenever you’d like, maintaining social distancing and respect for the neighborhood.
