{"id":1723,"date":"2013-04-12T18:01:10","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T22:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/national\/?p=1723"},"modified":"2013-04-12T21:10:31","modified_gmt":"2013-04-13T01:10:31","slug":"detroit-qa-with-jenenne-whitfield-of-the-heidelberg-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/national\/2013\/04\/12\/detroit-qa-with-jenenne-whitfield-of-the-heidelberg-project\/","title":{"rendered":"DETROIT: Q&A with Jenenne Whitfield of the Heidelberg Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jenenne Whitfield is the executive director of the Heidelberg Project<\/a>. Started 27 years ago, it is an outdoor art installation on Heidelberg Street in Detroit, consisting of a series of ever-evolving decorated and painted houses. It was started by Tyree Guyton<\/a>, who, through this vision, transformed the area from one people were scared walking through into one that locals now take pride in and curious travellers visit. The idea has since spread to other parts of Detroit, as well as other parts of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"detroit-jenenne-heidelberg\"<\/a><\/em>Spacing: What was your first impression when you drove down Heidelberg Street?<\/strong>
\nWhitfield<\/strong>: My first impression was, \u2018This man needs to get a job; he\u2019s got too much time on his hands.\u2019 That\u2019s just what I thought but that\u2019s so funny because it gives you an idea about the way I was thinking. I obviously had a prescription for life and I thought it had to be done a certain way and Tyree Guyton challenged all of that and opened up things in me that I didn\u2019t even know were there, and, as I say all the time and tell people, I\u2019ve had butterflies ever since.<\/p>\n

Spacing: What did you start doing as executive director of the Heidelberg Project?<\/strong>
\nWhitfield<\/strong>: Well the important thing about Heidelberg is because Tyree did what he did, people thought that he could do so many other things like write grants, give talks and all of that. So I do everything except paint the Heidelberg Project. So that\u2019s everything that would entail building a non-profit, [including] working with board of directors, writing grants, building infrastructure, hiring people when you\u2019ve got the money to do it and everything that it takes to make any business run.<\/p>\n

Spacing: Is there any sort of method to the way these art installations are done? Is there something that [Tyree] draws on to do them?<\/strong>
\nWhitfield<\/strong>: That\u2019s a good question. It\u2019s actually inspiration. It\u2019s an evolution. For example, I\u2019ll tell you that one particular installation on Heidelberg Street was created as a result of eight medical students coming to us from Wayne State University and wanting to talk to us about the state of health care. And so Tyree gave them a stage. And they created an installation called \u201cA Beacon for Broken Health Care.\u201d Another example is a social group called Code Pink [who] wanted to speak about the waste and consumption of the automobile industry so together with Tyree they came up with the concept of burying a pink Hummer and instead riding a bicycle. That\u2019s kind of the way it evolved. Then when the artists see a work of art that is kind of falling apart or is going back to the earth, it\u2019s time for a new installation.<\/p>\n

\"detroit-heidelberg2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spacing: When you say a new installation, do they fix up some of the installations or do they totally get rid of them and then do something else?<\/strong>
\nWhitfield<\/strong>: Part of it is fixing them up because [Tyree] likes the element \u2013 the weather \u2013 to play a part in the transformation. So it\u2019s important to recognize we\u2019re not about preserving or trying to maintain a certain state and condition. It\u2019s like life itself; we\u2019re always changing. And when it\u2019s unsalvageable, then it\u2019s replaced with something else.<\/p>\n

Spacing: What do you think is the effect of this kind of art on people\u2019s lives?<\/strong>
\nWhitfield<\/strong>: I think that it has much more to do with what happens to you on the inside than what is happening on the outside. It \u2013 and I use myself as an example \u2013 it awakened me, but I didn\u2019t think I was asleep. So the interesting thing is that there is a type of inspiration that\u2019s found in creativity that opens your mind up to new possibilities. Not just new possibilities in an urban community but new possibilities perhaps in your school, new possibilities in your home. It\u2019s an awakening of the soul, and Tyree said that his art is a medicine. And I always use this analogy that initially, medicine is a bitter pill to swallow (and that kind of gives you an indication of how people have received it over the years), but once it gets into the blood stream, it has a tendency of working. It start to change, it starts to make change and that\u2019s all of the things that we see happen, but mostly it\u2019s awakening the human spirit.<\/p>\n

photos by Thomas Hawk<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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