Sidewalk to Utopia


Sidewalk Festival, Old Redford, Detroit. (2019)

Sidewalk to Utopia is a gateway to the Sidewalk Festival that acts as a mediator, threshold, and expression of identity to create a reflecting and engaging moment of pause and play. It acted as both stage and backdrop to the rest of the Sidewalk Festival’s various performances.

This installation is an archive, capturing the relationship of repurposed billboard tarp next to an abandoned billboard structure facing impending removal. This moment celebrates community power, asserting value in objects and places once left behind. The residents of Old Redford named the building during its redevelopment efforts that followed this moment. The curtain and wind is a playful element that invites all to walk through.