Help Restore a House in Detroit

TLDR; Erin bought a house in Detroit. It will become an art project. Julian and Erin are heading the renovation. We're currently funding through our savings and U-M's Big Idea Award. Funds will dry up. Help us if you can!

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Hello from Erin Wakeland and Julian Hansen!
I, Erin, bought a house in Detroit from the Detroit Land Bank! Together we are restoring it!

 

 

I got a grant from the University of Michigan for a Big Idea in 2020 .  I wrote the winning idea pre-pandemic, and covid was a real wet blanket for the cross-country teenage art camp I proposed.

 

 

The pandemic helped me realize the importance of a home. Home as a place of refugee, home as a place for absurd experiments.

 

 

After nearly a year post-grad, I also realized there is only grassroots support for artists. The most radical gift for an artist is time and space-- a secure place to live and a studio to experiment in.

 

 

I re-proposed my Big Idea. I am to renovate a house in Detroit and establish it as an artist residency. Later on in the renovation, I will invite artists, builders, friends, and neighbors to work on the house in the form of a task. Upon arrival, each team/individual will receive a task and complete it with creative and thrifty abilities, varied skill-level, and style. Tasks may be to build shelving using only found wood, create wallpaper for a room using cyanotype, etc.

 

Upon completing a task, the individual is granted the ability to live in the house for a specified amount of time, and the house will become an artist residency.

 

We intend to create a self-sustaining location for a community that prioritizes ingenuity, creativity, curiosity, observation of their worlds, critical and poetic thought, and craft-based skills-- with the ability to practice these ideals on the property with given time and space.

 

 

We’re stretching our funds well and with a little help we could restore this home as a typical energy inefficient home in the next year.

 

 

With a lot of help, we could work towards maximum energy efficiency sooner. The dream is to make this a passive solar home. A passive solar home collects heat as the sun shines through south-facing windows and retains it in materials i.e. 1 ft wide of insulation, air-tight windows, etc. This model would curb our home’s impact on the environment and cut energy costs dramatically .

There are many facets of this project and they will be teased out through our newsletter!  We will cover the planning and progress on this house and surrounding outdoor space, the artist residency, how to rehab a Detroit Land Bank house, DIY restoration, green building, art and farming initiatives in our neighborhood, the local history, and more.

 

 

However this pans out, we are endlessly grateful for your support. This house will play an important role in shaping our lives. Keep following to see where this takes us!

Love,
Erin and Julian