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R E V E A L Y O U R D I A 1 RevealYour DIA Annmarie Erickson MUSEUMS AND ARTISTS. They’re like yin and yang. It’s not always an easy relationship, but it’s an enduring one that frequently creates sparks of brilliance . Detroit Revealed was one such sparkler. The exhibition was organized by DIA associate curator Nancy Barr and a group of local and national artists and photographers all inspired by Detroit. From Michelle Andonian documenting the reinvention of Ford’s Rouge plant to Dawoud Bey interviewing and photographing students at Detroit’s now defunct Chadsey High to the neighborhood views of Carlos Diaz to Andrew Moore, perhaps the most well known of the group, photographing Detroit’s “spectacular” decline in luscious, large-scale pictures. These visions of Detroit are individual and indelible. Detroit Revealed featured more than fifty works created from 2000 to 2010. Detroit was revealed in its sturdy neighborhoods, urban prairies, concrete paths, and sagging ruins. The exhibition captured a diverse the museum also recognized an opportunity to extend conversation and collaboration beyond its galleries by engaging community-based organizations working to solve Detroit’s most pressing issues—through the RevealYour Detroit project. In another century, museums were founded as populist enterprises, a way to share the treasures of the world with the public. Time passed and museums became professionalized, developing an expert staff that was frequently better at speaking to other experts than to the public. As for engagement and inviting a creative response with the public? Not likely. More time passed and today’s museum visitors are most definitely finding their voices. Museums are not oracles. They are opportunities to discuss issues, identify challenges, and inspire solutions all within a safe, social community.Yesterday we were temple. Today we are town square! Detroit, facing the challenges of deindustrialization and urban blight, recording the dignity, despair, and delight of Detroit’s people. In many ways, the exhibition was a strong response to the “ruin-porn” narrative that has defined Detroit through a proliferation of online images from artists, journalists, and amateurs over the course of the first decade of this century. Indeed, Andrew Moore has been charged with exploiting Detroit’s tragedy in his photographs.Yet from another perspective he is exploring Detroit’s urban architecture as it moves through history, looking for the convergence of past and present and recording it. In many ways his work is situated in one of the significant challenges facing Detroit today: what can we reclaim from our past to strengthen the present and build for the future? Detroit Revealed presented a multifaceted view of our city, exposing the fault lines in any single view, particularly the prevailing narrative of failure and decay. In presenting this exhibition, Today we are town square! Reveal Your Detroit 2 R E V E A L Y O U R D I A The RevealYour Detroit project was a dialogue between the museum, established artists, and community organizations on these questions: What does your Detroit look like? How do you want others to see it? Forty-five community groups accepted the challenge, along with a how-to tool kit containing disposable cameras. First they visited Detroit Revealed to find inspiration, awe, or anger in the vision of established photographers. There were lively conversations among the group’s participants and with museum staff members about the intent of an artist, the composition of a picture, and the messages it communicated about Detroit. From there, our community partners took to their streets with their cameras to respond to the museum exhibition in visual language. They met the same challenge as the established artists. Show us your Detroit—the Detroit you want the world to see. Empowered by their cameras and the promise of a parallel exhibition that would feature their work, our community partners found their voices and committed them to film—an amazing array of images emerged comprising very personal stories about life in Detroit. The DIA first encouraged community dialogue several years ago as part of its plan to create a truly visitor-centered museum. We envisioned a place that would be welcoming and accessible to all. We were renovating the building and rehanging the collection, and we turned to the community to help us get it right.Visitor panels—groups of people recruited using diverse criteria who were willing to commit time to the project—critiqued concepts designed to engage them with art. They commented on...

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