Road Work (TM): HOOD CLOSED

ROAD WORK: "Hood Closed to Gentrifiers"- Phase1
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WHATUPDOE!! 

First and foremost, THANK YOU for supporting my art activism. <3

As an artist, one of my intentions for this first phase of my "ROAD WORK: Hood Closed" campaign is to give voice and accessible language to a sentiment and cultural politic, long-held by many peoples of Diasporic Afrikan/Indigenous ancestry who live in “majority Black and/or Brown” U.S. urban centers. 

Another intention is to start an important hyperlocal-to-global conversation. 

In this conversation, we are necessarily calling-out the modern trends in cultural/socioeconomic displacement and erasure [gentrification], while emphatically uplifting the dynamic legacies of self-determination, resilience and resourcefulness, that have been and continue to be demonstrated in our highly-contested racialized geographies.

This is a hymn to Decolonization.
This is an assertion and a rally cry.
This is a tool for self-deputization.
This is an act of diplomacy.

This is just the beginning. 
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PROJECT:
Gentrification for me is a “traffic control” issue.

A major aspect of my multidisciplinary work is using art and design to confront the conventional [old] ways that “traffic” [people; capitalist interests] is directed into (and out of) our majority our neighborhoods. Why and how people foreign to my city/neighborhood [outsiders] enter our spaces and conduct themselves is a diplomatic affair. As a self-deputized Detroit #diplomat, one of my roles is to make the cultural code visible and explicit, and then to disseminate our cultural policies, hyperlocally to globally.

My Phase1 goal is to fabricate and assemble twenty-two (22) 60in. x 30in.  reflective aluminum "Hood Closed to Gentrification"(tm) signs, and then deploy them in strategic areas throughout Detroit... which is no small feat.  Once all (22) signs are installed, Bryce Detroit will be organizing a series of virtual and socially-distanced public programming to inspire deeper and more critical conversations about the impacts and implications of gentrification in Detroit, as well as the grassroots justice-based strategies being employed to confront the issue. 

Bryce Detroit’s “Hood Closed to Gentrifiers” project has mobilized a team of Detroit-based professionals including designer Melinda Anderson of Studio M Designs, metalsmith Ben Wolf, and printer/designer Ron Watters of ONE CUSTOM CITY to execute this sizable work in just under 4 weeks. #WinterIsComing

The budget and donor levels are outlined below with an urgency for fundraising goals to be reached within the next 2 weeks (October 31, 2020 at 11:59PM).
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BUDGET:

**Fabrication & Assembly**
- Signs & Printing (22) reflective aluminum signs: $3704
- Sign Post/Assembly Materials (22) sign posts  [steel; welding consumables; bolts; plywood; labor]:  $3410
- Freight: $1000

**Installation** 
- Total Install hours: approx. 14hrs
- Gas: $50 
- Labor [1-lead + 1-assistant] @ combined rate $55/hr = $770

**Equipment**
- 15 piece cordless tool kit combo: $2000
- Additional tools [metal drill bits; masonry drill bits ; saw blades; grinder accessories; hammers; crowbars; screwdrivers; socket set]: $500

**Project Management**
- Project Lead: $2500 
- Documentation [photographer @ $200 x 4hrs; videographer @ $1000): $1800
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DONOR LEVELS:
The first (6) $1000+ donors will receive a special invitation to private 45 min. live performance by Bryce Detroit, along with a signed vinyl LP of Bryce Detroit's recent studio album "Structured Water", and an official "Hood Closed to Gentrifiers" crewneck sweatshirt. 

The first (11) $500+ donors will receive a signed vinyl LP of Bryce Detroit's recent studio album "Structured Water" along with an official "Hood Closed to Gentrifiers" crewneck sweatshirt.

The first (222) $100+ donors will receive an autographed "Hood Closed to Gentrifiers" screen print along with an official "Road Work" embroidered patch.