Billboards Detroit
Popp’s Packing, Detroit
Documentation of four installations installed on ‘junior’ billboards around the Hamtramck and Poletown areas of Detroit whilst on residency with Popp’s Packing. These vinyl images, installed on the billboards, show particular sites accross the Detroit industrial area of Poletown, identified by Detroit residents interviewed by the artists as locations where their homes or their relatives homes once stood.
In the 1980’s the City of Detroit regularly seized land from home owners to give to private companies (in this case General Motors) using a legal process called ‘Eminent Domain’. Through this process the City of Detroit set a Nationwide legal precedent for taking land from homeowners to give to private companies, successfully arguing that it was in the “public interest” and for the “public good” by encouraging employment and economic growth. Around 4000 houses in the Poletown area were razed by the city where General Motors then built it’s new factories. These factories employed a total 1200 individuals, and the vast majority of the inductrial zone is abandoned and desolate today.
Documentation of these installations was exhibited in various forms at Popp’s Packing (Detroit), KINGS ARI (Melbourne) and online with the art publication Infinite Mile.
Billboard dimensions: 4m (w) x 1.5 m (h)
Materials: Self adhesive vinyl print of artist image