Bagley Mobility Hub is one of four areas currently under development in the Michigan Central district and is scheduled to open later this year. While the main purpose of the structure is to provide parking for the surrounding area, it also will feature a pedestrian-friendly streetscape, platforms for art presentation and other public amenities. Mixed-media installations will be featured along Bagley Street, on the structure’s water cisterns and on the building’s south-facing stairwell.

Garage Cultural, a local arts and cultural organization led by Amelia Duran, will create artwork along Bagley Street in collaboration with Detroit-based artist DeMaciiio and Washington D.C.-based MasPaz. Building wraps by Senghor Reid will adorn the three water cisterns, while light art by Patrick Ethen will fill the building’s south-facing stairwell and beyond.
“We are honored to welcome these extraordinary artists to Michigan Central. Arts and culture will be a critical part of Michigan Central, reflecting who and what we represent, and these installations will be a meaningful first step for us,” said Joshua Sirefman, CEO of Michigan Central. “We are inspired by the ideas underpinning each of the artists’ proposals, and look forward to witnessing their creative processes and presenting their work to the broader community. Together, the three installations at the Bagley Mobility Hub will bring to life the interplay between mobility, community, and diverse perspectives that embodies Michigan Central.”

Reid, artist-in-residence at Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, has had his work exhibited in galleries and museums in the U.S. and abroad, including Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. His work explores the interaction between the human body and the environment, with an emphasis on water. At Michigan Central, his installation will feature textured depictions of major bodies of water in Michigan – including the Great Lakes and Detroit River – on each of the water cisterns along what will become Southwest Greenway. A native of Southwest Detroit, Reid hopes to foster an appreciation for water and local waterways through his work, which will be applied via vinyl wraps.

“I try to create imagery that will be intriguing and engaging,” said Reid. “I want people, especially young people, to be engaged by bright colors, movement and the flow of the work in the hope they will in some way be inspired to think about their relationships with water.”

Art on the Block is a community public art initiative of Garage Cultural, a local arts and cultural organization with more than 40 years of history in Southwest Detroit that has produced more than 15 large-scale murals. Duran, who lives two blocks away from Michigan Central district, serves as co-director of the collective. The group aims to include local artists and organizations to create a piece spanning a 97-foot stretch along Bagley Street at ground level.

Duran, co-director of Garage Cultural, sees public art as a way to reinvigorate hope in the community. “For us, it was really amazing to be selected for this project,” she said. “As longtime residents who have been driving art and cultural work for a very long time in our community, we feel like it’s important to elevate people who have been doing this work before there was a presence like Ford, or an influx of development and resources coming in.”

The concept of the piece, “For Us, By Us,” will honor those involved with the Equitable Internet Initiative, a program created in 2015 to address gaps in internet access in Detroit. Duran was inspired by the work the group has done to create the infrastructure the community needs to access the essential technology. The project, led by residents of the community, will be installed with vinyl wraps, marking the group’s first installation that is not painted.

Ethen, an architecturally trained artist and designer, is producing an abstract installation of slowly moving neon light patterns in the south-facing stairwell of the six-level Bagley Mobility Hub. A resident of Corktown who has been working in Detroit since 2015, Ethen’s kinetic light sculpture uses neon bulbs to produce saturated color frequencies that create a glowing wall.

“It’s going to be this glowing wall of a staircase on the inside and outside,” he said. “The moving light on the façade is going to change the light combinations on the inside of the stairwell, and from the outside, you’re going to see these large motions happening the size of a six-story building façade. It’s very simple, but there’s a lot of complex behavior and color interaction and color mixture that happens.”

A public call to Detroit-based artists and teams to submit work for any of the three locations at Bagley Mobility Hub was issued earlier this year by the public art commission, which drew nearly 60 proposals. Artists were encouraged to explore the past, present and future of mobility, showcasing how art can enliven and tell the stories of the surrounding community that connects the people of Detroit to the world. Short-listed artists submitted final proposals, which were then reviewed by the Michigan Central District Art Program curatorial advisory board and project team. The advisory board then made its recommendations on the final selections.

The artists start work this month and will continue throughout the summer, culminating in a fall unveiling.

Making Michigan Central a global art destination
This project marks the first of many that will make up the Michigan Central District Art Program. The art program, launched in 2021, aims to establish the district as a global arts and culture destination, exploring how art contributes to the future of mobility while connecting the surrounding neighborhoods. The program shares the guiding principles and philosophy of Michigan Central, celebrating equity, inclusivity, and innovation.

Michigan Central District Art Program is guided by a rotating group of artists, curators, nonprofit and community organization leaders, and institutional members of Detroit’s arts and culture scene. The group makes sure Michigan Central maintains a grassroots connection to Detroit’s creative community and that the art is reflective, supportive, and equitably engaged with the community.

“There aren’t enough words to express how excited I am that Michigan Central has made the incorporation of local art a part of this vital transformation of a state treasure,” said Rochelle Riley, director of Arts and Culture, city of Detroit, and Michigan Central curatorial board member. “I think that residents and tenants and tourists will be thrilled with the result. And I hope it gives our local arts community hope that companies like Ford understand how important our creative workforce is.”

The process for the Bagley Mobility Hub art installations was facilitated by Vancouver-based independent art advisory Farmboy Fine Arts.

About Bagley Mobility Hub
Bagley Mobility Hub is a state-of-the-art, tech-enabled mobility center offering 1,252 parking spots, an autonomous vehicle testing area, e-bike and e-scooter stations, electric charging, automated payment technology and smart guidance systems.

The facility is designed as a community-facing resource, with streetscape enhancements, ground floor retail, access to micro-mobility solutions and new public amenities, including restrooms, free Wi-Fi, two outdoor plazas and shaded seating areas. The secure facility will be open 24 hours, seven days a week and offer access to public parking.

Bagley Mobility Hub will serve as a gateway and shared resource for users of Southwest Greenway, which is being constructed by Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to link the new west riverfront Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park to the train station.

The Bagley Mobility Hub is a joint venture between Ford Land, Vokal Ventures LLC and Detroit Opportunity Fund II LLC, an entity controlled by the Rakolta family.

The post Detroit Artists To Launch Michigan Central Art Program at Bagley Mobility Hub appeared first on Michigan Central.

In 2018, Ford bought the once-grand train depot, which was opened in 1913 and abandoned in 1988. Soon afterward, it announced plans for a $350-million renovation that would bring the site back to life as the anchor of the Corktown neighborhood. Those plans have been expanded and now call for turning the 30 acres surrounding the old train station into a “mobility innovation district” where Ford will do research involving next-generation vehicles and transportation technology. The land will also include community gathering space.

An artist’s rendering of what the grounds surrounding the Michigan Central Station might look like. Indoor and outdoor artworks are planned for the site.

Farmboy Fine Arts, an art advisory firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is overseeing the curation of Ford’s public art project. The company describes its mission as “designing impactful art experiences for our global clientele.” It has collaborated with, among others, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, JW Marriott and Royal Caribbean International.

“Art is one of the great connectors because it has no physical boundaries,” said Ariel Grue Lee, Farmboy’s vice president of business development. “We’ve been working to bring as many artists to the table as possible who are already doing amazing work in (Detroit) and want to create work at the station. We’ll also be doing open calls where artists can submit proposals for specific areas and opportunities, and our vision is starting to expand into even performance, projection work, all sorts of digital technology.

“There’s potential to do a lot of rotating art displays,” she said. “There could be a permanent gallery inside the train station itself, as well as work that changes regularly, or community activations, or an actual performance that happens for a period of time, even movie production. We want a diversity of mediums because there are so many diverse stories to be told.

“Some of the art that’s happening in Detroit is absolutely at a global level of skill,” she continued, “and we’re really excited to be able to shine that light. People all over the world are interested in Michigan Central, so it will really be a national and international beacon. We’re excited about how that will help to elevate some of the incredible work happening on the ground here.”

Work continues on the restoration of the Michigan Central Station, which was opened in 1913 and abandoned in 1988.

Rochelle Riley, arts and culture director for the City of Detroit, serves on the Michigan Central curatorial board and describes Ford’s art efforts as “one of the most important projects in the city.”

“We’ve had conversations about what the outcome should be, what type of relationship Ford should have with the city’s artists. … It’s all been amazing. One of the things that I have been impressed by is they’re not just reaching out to artists, but they’re talking to people who are invested in the arts, who work with and fund artists. On our board, we have Nate Wallace from the Knight Foundation. We’ve got actual artists, and they’re making sure that what they’re doing fits not only with what residents want, but where art is going in Detroit.

“We’ve been having very intuitive and unusual conversations about art,” she said. “When people walk into that space, no matter who they are or what part of the city they come from, they should have a feeling that it belongs to them.”

“This is just such a breath of fresh air – to see a great building saved after it looked like it was going to go to the wrecking ball,” says Detroit artist Scott Hocking, who has staged work in the Michigan Central Station.

Artist Scott Hocking is impressed with Ford’s effort as well. The 2011 Kresge Visual Arts Fellow has staged work in the Michigan Central Station for several years.

“It seems to me that Farmboy did really diligent research on Detroit’s art scene,” he said. “They reached out and had a Zoom meeting with around 20 Detroit-based creative people from different ages, backgrounds, mediums, and I was one of those people. That led to one-on-one meetings. Being an outside company working on a project here in Detroit, they’re taking the time to evaluate the right approach and involving artists in the entire process of renovating the train station.

“I’ve been here my whole life,” he continued, “and that train station has existed since I was a child. But when I started to pursue art myself, in the ’90s, it was abandoned and had been busted open by scrappers. There was no gate around it. The front doors had been stolen. You could drive your car right in there. A lot of old buildings had been essentially abandoned by very wealthy people who didn’t care about the history of the neighborhood, and the train station was the shining example of that. The Packard plant is another.

“That’s the kind of thing we’re used to here,” he said. “And this is just such a breath of fresh air – to see a great building saved after it looked like it was going to go to the wrecking ball.”

Story by Duante Beddingfield | Detroit Free Press

The post Ford plans to turn Michigan Central Station and grounds into a showplace for public art appeared first on Michigan Central.