Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit

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Jan 12

January 14th 3pm-6pm SUPERFRONT presents “Design with Detroit: Urban Futures” rapid charrette

On January 14th 3pm-6pm SUPERFRONT presents “Design with Detroit: Urban Futures,” a rapid design charrette for students and young designers at the Queens Museum of Art.  Designers will have 30 minutes to review a brief and 2 hours to respond with design drawings in real time.  The goal of the charrette is to generate designs informed by awareness of the city’s rich contemporary cultural practices, as well as the history of anti-displacement organizing in Detroit and beyond. The design problems to address range from the rehabilitation of historic buildings in commercial districts to design-build strategies for multi-generational education centers and productive use of collective open space.  The program brief for the design includes a screening of the 12-minute music video/documentary “Locusts,” a work of Detroit-based EMERGENCE media.  This is the 3rd event in SUPERFRONT’s Lab for Urban Futures series at the Queens Museum of Art, which culminates with a publication release in February.

To participate in the charrette please rsvp to info@superfront.org with your full name by Jan 12.

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Dec 11

SUPERFRONT’s Lab for Urban Futures presents “Farming: The Right to The City” December 10th 3pm – 5pm at the Queens Museum of Art

SUPERFRONT’s Lab for Urban Futures at the Queens Museum of Art presents “Farming: The Right to the City” a multi-disciplinary panel on urban farming and the post-industrial city. Taking place on International Human Rights Day, the panel considers urban farming as a practice with political, social, and economic significance. Facilitated by SUPERFRONT curators Chloë Bass and Mitch McEwen, the panel invites local urban farmers to discuss their work as relating not only to food and the locavore movement, but also to the intersection of rights and urbanism. Henri Lefebvre’s *Right to the City*provides a framework for articulating “a transformed and renewed access to urban life.” In particular, the event will address the intersection of community organizing and urban farming in both Detroit and New York. Join Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit as we de-romanticize urban farming as a practice, addressing the intersection of urban farming with issues of inner-city food deserts, artist communities and gentrification, labor policy and the contemporary political economy.

Photo courtesy Lee Mandel, Boswyck Farms.  Earthworks Urban Farm, Detroit.

 

Panelists include:

Kubi Ackerman, Urban Design Lab at Columbia University’s Earth Institute
Adrienne Brown, Detroit Food Justice Task Force
Maggie Cheney, Ecostation:NY
Lee Mandell, Boswyck Farms
Zach Pickens, Riverpark
Occupy Wall Street Food Justice/Sustainability Working Group
Karen Washington, La Finca del Sur/South Bronx Farmers

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5
Oct 11

“Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit” at the Queens Museum

October 8, 2011 3-5pm – Detroit Misresembled: SUPERFRONT walk-through at the Queens Museum of Art.  Free + open to the public.

SUPERFRONT offers a critical walk-through tour of Detroit: Disassembled that situates the aesthetic of ruination within a larger conversation about representations of Detroit and the post-industrial city.  Led by SUPERFRONT curators Chloë Bass and Mitch McEwen, this walking tour launches the Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit, an event series at the Queens Museum of Art. The tour invites viewers to actively engage with and discuss the seductive power of Andrew Moore’s images.  The question of iconography is explored in terms of the art historical references at work in Moore’s photographs, as well as through an investigation of the complex role of iconography in the contemporary urban environment.  The discussion continues with a presentation on the traveling SUPERFRONT exhibit DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY. Participants are invited to contribute their comments to an upcoming Lab for Urban Futures publication.

The Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit consists of a series of live events and rapid publications that invite guests from a range of disciplines to consider Detroit as a provocation for new investigations and experiments in urbanism.  Co-produced by Chloë Bass and Mitch McEwen, the curators of SUPERFRONT’s traveling exhibit DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY, the series focuses on the future of city development for a post-industrial age.  From transformations in land use and waterfront activity to abandoned buildings and shifting residential populations, the post-industrial stage of capitalism has major long-term implications for American cities. Working with urban sociologists, independent media producers, food enthusiasts, agriculture activists, urban designers, architects and other urban strategists, the Lab invites the public to engage these locally-relevant issues through the lens of Detroit.

Admission is by suggested donation. Adults: $5 Senior and Children: $2.50 Members and Children under five: Free