“Urban Americans are beginning to re-imagine and re-order the urban landscape, taking advantage of now-malleable understandings of urban space, design and even ownership.”
—Michael Carriere, *The Death and (After)Life of the American City; A Call to the Creators of the City,* Proximity Magazine Issue #6
I’m excited to be contributing to the development of a new project called the Detroit Conservancy, which will give an urban home to the ethos that drives Rabbit Island.
Starting with Rabbit Island’s existing plot of land, 1465 Pennsylvania Avenue in East Detroit, we envision creating a network of reclaimed residential and industrial lots bound together by the common vision of scalable conservation within an urban environment.
The prevailing approach to vacant land in Detroit is use, is to repurpose and rebuild. Houses, office buildings, parks, farms: all are viable possible uses for currently vacant land, but the Detoit Conservancy will add another option to that conversation.
Over time, the Conservancy will restore plots to their natural state through the reintroduction of native grasses and trees, plus soil clean-up and rehabilitation. Or maybe they will simply be allowed to undergo succession. These plots will slowly transform into their former selves. The Detroit Conservancy exhibits public preservation of open space in an effort to illuminate and critique dominant approaches to place-making within the post-subdivision landscape.
The Conservancy will connect purchased plots with neighborhood stewards in an effort to maintain cleanliness, safety, and a sense of presence within the land—factors often lacking in Detroit’s vacant spaces. The initial goal is for these rehabilitated spaces to provide neighborhoods with access to a slice of regional wilderness within a decidedly urban context. The long-term goal is to build a program of organized reclamation, stewardship and interpretation by bringing local and non-local artists to the plots for embedded residencies, where they can make work driven by the concept of conservation within an urban context and create projects and public programming to share with the neighborhood.
Artists will be offered access to time on Rabbit Island to further develop conversation between Michigan’s wild environment and Detroit’s tumultuous urbanity.
I’m excited about this project because it’s an interesting synthesis of seemingly opposing ethics—and while it’s a project mostly driven by ideas at this point, it has the potential to unfold into the most tangible thing that we as bodily beings can experience: land. You will be able to smell this project. You will be able to ride a bicycle to it, see it on a map, sit in it. It’s as simple as that.
On June 1, there will be a benefit art auction to support sending artists to Rabbit Island (75%) and to purchase plots in the upcoming city auction of land in Detroit (25%). If you live in New York, please go. And spend your money. You could help push forward the vision of the Detroit Conservancy.
- Nicole Lavelle, Artist, Portland, Oregon
We’re hosting the first annual Rabbit Island Benefit on June 1st in NYC to raise money for this summer’s Artists in Residence (75%) and the conservation of parcels of land in Detroit during the annual fall tax auction (25%). Over the past two seasons visiting artists have supported themselves while traveling to the island. This year we are attempting to help our residents with a small amount of financial assistance. We’re also attempting to exemplify the idea that doing or making should be tied to conservation. It’s a good formula. Please join us.
Participating Artists include: Ron Gorchov, Mike Perry, Liz Clark, Annie Varnot, Aaron Wexler, Lucy Engelman, Andrew Ranville, Miwa Koizumi, Archie Lee Coates IV, Ports Bishop, Emilie Lee, Peter Buchanan-Smith, Christian De Vietri, Nicole Lavelle, Charlotte X.C Sullivan, Miles Mattison, Sara Maynard, Yuko Oda, Jennifer Maravillas, Leif Parsons, Tolland Mansfield, Nicole Lavelle, Meg Whiteford, Marlin Ledin, Kelly Geary, Isabella Martin, Mary Rothlisberger, Hayley Severns, Sara Darnell, Emily Julka, Helen Lovelee and many more.
+ $25 tickets can be purchased online or at the door.
+ Facebook event page
+ Invitation by Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis of LoT Architecture. Thanks guys.
Photos: emily julka and rob gorski
Andrew Ranville’s TEDx talk is now online.
This print will be available at the upcoming Rabbit Island Benefit in NYC on June 1st, on our online island shop when it launches in the near future (gallery + experiment in commerce + crowd sourcing + preservation), and will hopefully inspire many island dance collaborations. Form expressed beautifully, after all, is a simple and stylish pursuit. Like wilderness, it is classic and will remain graceful and unchanged in perpetuity. Art has often been inspired by wilderness historically, of course, but amidst the modern context of divided land can the creation of wild spaces of scale for their own sake be inspired by art? Can it be considered art? Can it even be done?
We’re excited to be a part of the first ever TEDx event hosted in northern Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. The event is sponsored by Michigan Technological University this Saturday, March 23rd, between 9:30am and 7pm EDT. The theme of the event is Journeys.
Andrew Ranville, Rabbit Island’s founding Artist in Residence, will be speaking about his experience living on the island over the past two summers and how it has affected his arts practice and world view. He’ll also be talking a bit about what’s coming up for the project. Currently he’s en-route from London, UK, and will be landing later tonight up north so long as the runways are clear of snow.
Tickets are sold out but the talks will be broadcast live online. Andrew’s talk will be opening the event just after 9:30am EDT so make sure to log on early!
Cheers to everyone who put the energy into organizing this event. Michigan’s Copper Country is so darn special.
Sarah Darnell, one of the Cabin-Time crew members who spent some time with us this past summer just released a publication of drawings related to the work she did on the island.
Pick up your copy for only $6 from Issue Press, an independent publisher of art books and prints in Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Cabin-Time recently completed the fourth chapter of their nomadic camp earlier this month in northern Michigan’s Wilderness State Park. Check out some photos of their trip.
We’re looking forward to collaborating with Cabin-Time again in the future. Remember to save a copy for the Rabbit Island library, Sarah!
The good folks at the The Alpine Review will be featuring some text and photographs from Rabbit Island in their second issue, out this spring.
The Montreal-based bi-annual magazine tracks art, culture and ideas around the world. Below are a few words from the preface of the inaugural print. They remind us a bit, perhaps, of sentiments found in Foucault’s The Order of Things.
Exploring ‘the order of things’ is definitely a premise of the island project. Can the civilized and the native become more sensible complements via better organization? Can the collusion of modern ideas (genetics, the web, mapping, social business, art, etc.), lead to new, more fundamentally classic, rules than currently stand as policy? Can metaphors from a remote island apply to a broader setting? We’re hopeful. Regardless, we’re excited to collaborate with this beautiful new publication.
These are fascinating times. It is a common vanity to believe that one’s generation is the most tumultuous, most evolving and most important. Perhaps it is is true. Perhaps it is nothing more than historical narcissism. Nevertheless, there is an uncanny feeling that something profound is taking place at this very moment. This is not a gradual evolution. This is an accelerating shake-up spanning industries and cultures: a massive tearing-down, redesign and renovation of processes, systems, structures and perspectives.
The magnitude of these rapid changes intrigued and discomforted me. After speaking to friends and colleagues it became clear that I was not the only one. I realized that the passage of time, the impetus of career and excesses of consumerism had started making me numb; like the pins and needles that climb into your toes when you’ve been still for too long, I felt compelled to shake it out. It was time for a new project: The Alpine Review.
[…]
Modernity rarely allows us the luxury and liberty of mindful reflection and I have been truly fortunate to spend a year doing just that: traveling, discussing and debating with people I admire, connecting with new projects, and actually taking the time to look listen and question. What started as an exciting conversation with my co-editor has snowballed into a compendium of ideas and observations from people all around the world trying to make sense of things. I’m honored to present you with the inaugural issues of The Alpine Review.
Louis-Jacques Darveau, Editor