Down at the newly-imagined Lincoln Street Art Park, bridging New Center and Woodbridge, the Oct. 29 dedication ceremony will be both a celebration of local funders and believers, and a chance to find out what lies ahead for one of the city's most exciting new community spaces.
The Lincoln Street Art Park is a collaborative project between
Detroit Synergy,
Recycle Here! and
Midtown, Inc., funded with the help of a grant from the
Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (not to mention 44 art-lovers who ponied up
Kickstarter funds to help make the park a possibility). This community space, designed by James Willer on land donated by Recycle Here!'s Matthew Naimi, will feature plenty of recycled and re-imagined materials, not to mention the works of Lincoln Street Art Park's founding artists -- Marianne Burrows, Amanda Box, John Suave, Lindsay Harnish, Sarah Gavie, Carl Oxley III, and graffiti artists Fel3000 and BrownBag -- from murals and paintings to sculptures, and even a garden of wishes.
"Lindsay Harnish did this installation/exhibition at Figment on Belle Isle this year, where she made this handmade paper with wildflower seeds in it, and invited people to write wishes on the paper," says Michelle DiMercurio of Detroit Synergy, who serves on the park planning team. "Then, for Figment, she strung them up on a tree, so she had a tree of wishes. So we took the wishes, and we actually planted them in the garden."
The dedication ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 29 kicks off at 4:30 p.m., though the bonfire will last till 10 p.m. Make sure to drop by for hot apple cider, s'mores and the inside scoop on plans for the park's second phase of development.
"It's a chance to do something permanent and have that be something that people can enjoy," says DiMercurio. "And it's a way to establish connections between the neighborhoods," she says, noting that the Lincoln Street Art Park is a "connection point" between many other local green spaces, like the Woodbridge Community Garden, New Center Park, Anna Scripps Park and Sprit of Hope. "It's connecting dots on the map that are about a mile and a half to two miles apart, so it makes this little chain of green spots throughout the neighborhoods."
Click
here to RSVP to the dedication on Facebook.
Source: Michelle DiMercurio, Detroit Synergy
Writer: Ashley C. Woods
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