I visited the Heidelberg Project located on Heidelberg St. in Detroit, MI. Artist Tyree Guyton, a resident of Detroit since his youth saw the demise of his neighborhood and the demise of Detorit. Guyton claims that the city never recovered from the race riots in the 1960’s. Guyton, with the help of his former wife, grandfather and neighborhood children began to clean up the neighborhood. round Heidelberg St. The polka dots on Guyton’s home were the first manifestation of the project which “envisions neighborhood residents using art to come together to rebuild the structure and fabric of under-resourced communities and to create a way of living that is economically viable, enriches lives, and welcomes all people” (http://www.heidelberg.org/mission.html).

Art engulfs, overpowers, literally re-makes Guyton’s neighborhood, womb of the Heidelberg Project. Discarded materials—everything from stuffed animals to shoes and shopping carts to vacuum cleaners and television sets—is the medium of Guyton’s art. Springing up from empty lots and plastered over burnt buildings, Guyton’s work is decidedly foreign to the landscape, but not entirely out of place in the neighborhood.

We arrived three car loads of people arrived at the site, a specific destination for our pilgrimage to Detroit. My cohorts were composed of seven males and six females, three people of color, the rest Caucasian. Besides the entourage of my friends approximately ten others—mostly female and all Caucasian—were visiting the site on that pleasant fall day

A sign posted at one entrance of the project requests guests not to step on lawns or approach homes (unless we are invited to do so). The large sign reminded visitors these are peoples’ homes. I was acutely aware of my role as a spectator while I was at the Heidelberg Project. I am white, female, well-fed, clothed and looking at communities that are not as well off as my own. The Heidelberg Project is located within an inner city neighborhood plagued by poverty. The roads are not well kept, homes are vacant. There are a number of liquor stores, but no place to buy groceries. While wandering through the project I witnessed the erosion, the decay, and withering bursts of life in a place, despite its maladies, where people need to eat and sleep and feed their kids. I was a looker, a seer, a visitor, a guest. Standing and looking. I am the spectator and the artwork is what is to be viewed. This relationship is what exists in a gallery, but instead of standing in a gallery I am in the middle of a neighborhood in a dying city. I gawk at the beauty I see emanating from goods that were recovered from the trash. I am standing in the middle of someone’s street pacing the empty lot across from their house, walking into the middle of someone’s life and I am interested in seeing what they are doing.

Visiting the Heidelberg Project put me in a position to view the artwork, but also to view the people who lived in the area. The people who live on Heidelberg St. were on display in such a way that harkens to historical disenfranchisement of African Americans. This vaguely reminded me of the film Bontoc Eulogy, a mocumentary in which the narrator’s Filipino great-grandfather is allegedly one of the “specimens” put on view at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Poverty was being viewed by the outsiders who made a point to see the exhibit. Guyton uses artwork as a tool to empower people out of their poverty. This is evident with the programs such as workshops in Detroit Schools, a community garden, Art in da Hood, Youth Association of Heidelberg, which are part of the Heildelberg Project aimed at community involvement in the city. The power of art to cultivate a spectacle is also in play. Guyton overtakes a space with his artwork in an effort to bring attention to the neighborhood and the plight of its residents.

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