Neighborhood placekeeping nonprofit Sidewalk Detroit is using public art to try and help mitigate air pollution in Detroit’s East Canfield Village.
The organization has commissioned a regenerative installation by New York-based sculptor and activist Jordan Weber that will monitor the levels of volatile organic compounds resulting from the nearby Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant.
The project is being called Detroit Remediation Forest and will include air-purifying trees like pine and cypresses, space for community recreation, and air quality monitors, alongside Weber’s sculpture called “New Forest, Ancient Thrones.” The forest, in collaboration with the Canfield Consortium, will open to the public on May 18 with the unveiling of Weber’s installation.
“We’re honored to realize artist Jordan Weber’s most ambitious public artwork to date,” Sidewalk Detroit founder and director Ryan Myers-Johnson said. “Detroit Remediation Forest was conceived in response to the environmental racism prevalent in Detroit and it speaks to Sidewalk's core mission of advancing spatial equity through the lens of community vision and restorative power of public art."
Stellantis’s Mack Assembly Plant, located blocks away from where the Detroit Remediation Forest will be located, has racked up repeated violations for paint and solvent odors over the last several years. Earlier this week, Stellantis agreed to pay a roughly $84,000 fine issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) for air quality violations at its Jefferson North Assembly Plant, which is located in the same neighborhood.
“New Forest, Ancient Thrones” will take the shape of crowns honoring two African queens — Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar — for their fight against colonialism. The crowns are also a tribute to Canfield Consortium co-founders Kim and Rhonda Theus and their fight against environmental racism as longtime residents of the neighborhood. “New Forest, Ancient Thrones” will serve as the entryway into the Detroit Remediation Forest and an air monitoring system will be installed on the sculpture.
“When one controls the land, one controls the people,” Weber said in a statement. “It is important that my projects help counteract the negative effects of discriminatory urban planning and supremacist constructs in the U.S. through education about environmental apartheid and quantitative change. It has been an honor to work with Sidewalk Detroit and Canfield Consortium to engage directly with residents and center their growing concerns about their surroundings in this work.”
Additional conifer trees and an elevated walkway will be installed in the Detroit Remediation Forest following the unveiling of Weber’s installation in May. The forest will also be a space for outdoor programming for the students of neighboring Barack Obama Leadership Academy and residents in partnership with Ecology Center, Green Door Initiative, Detroit Tree Equity Partnership, Greening of Detroit.
Placekeeping or placemaking uses art and cultural activities to shape the social and cultural nature of neighborhoods by and for people who live there. Sidewalk Detroit does this through public art and urban greenspace initiatives including the biennial Sidewalk Festival which spreads installations and public performances across the city.
