So thank you all for your patience as we are on a giant adventure this weekend together that I'm very excited about. Raise your hand if you are not from Detroit and you are in this room right now. So if you are from Detroit, make a new friend and tell them how great your city is. Because we're actually getting ready to go on this big adventure where we're going to be in seven neighborhoods in the next 48 hours. And so if you're from Detroit, we'd love for you to join us. Otherwise, hold on to the ride. I just want to talk for one brief second. My name is Ashley Sparks and I've been the event coordinator for here in Detroit. And I just want to say thank you to those of you who have spent a lot of time with me, feeding me, taking me out on boats, hanging out in community meetings and letting me just like deeply listen. This morning I woke up and I read a passage about remembering what inspires you and to think about joyful exertion. And I think that this event in Detroit for me is about that. And so I just want to ask all of us to kind of breathe in and just celebrate how amazing this beautiful city is. And I just want to offer some gratitude for the folks who have really helped pull this off. And the first person that I want to introduce is one of Detroit's finest poets. She is amazing and beautiful and so generous and she is a poet, self-publisher. She's won a lot of fancy pants awards because Detroit has a lot of talent in the house. So Jessica, care more if you could come on up. I'm a multimedia artist. I produce a large multimedia concert a weekend called Black Woman Rock. That's the place where I make a big rock and roll music. Rock and roll music with poetry and lots of work with jazz and activists and an educator. And so I'm really, really happy to be here with my girl, DJ Stacey Hotwax. And we are preparing right now for a show because like you guys are coming to Detroit and that's fresh. And then some of us we lead to show other people what Detroit is like. And so Purdue University is studying Detroit for their fall semester. So me and Stacey and Antonio AG, AKA Shades, a popular graffiti artist based in Detroit is traveling all over the world. And our traveling to Purdue University to do my show, The Missing Project Pieces of the D, which is a show about everything I love and miss about being away from Detroit and moving back. And it's going to be provided, Underground Existence has graciously provided us UR, which is a techno movement here in Detroit, has provided our soundtrack. And yes, it's a really beautiful show and we're going to be hopefully doing it in Detroit one day, and then we're going to do a little piece of it for you right now. Me being in Detroit and hanging out with the crew I was hanging out with, but understanding that beneath the surface I understood that if I didn't leave the crew that I was with, then that eventually I would end up at home in 1889. It was an unusual mix of juice and liquor with a child, her nursery rhyme name, Applejack on the rocks. We drink in the name of nighttime, blessed the ground and sing keep on moving like a love song. We scream in line for the dance, house music exercising us into ritualistic sweating on the floor. We in commune with ourselves, full of philosophy and promise alive in a dream state never ending like mornings at Denny's. We with deaf families, a tribe of young gamblers, babies who are old and intelligent. We both drive through full of truth, do prison do drive through full of truth, tents and reflections of who we could be if given a chance. We consider them revolutionary thinkers. I wrote part two selves. Real life should be ran, I'm no one there to catch you. I should be ran, I'm no one there to catch you. Still what you can't afford. Learn to live between the crack and the sidewalk. Barriers stolen treasures there. Free friends belong. Dream on liquor. Search for the God of your choice. Search for the God of your choice. Debate isn't a dream in the bush. Never let the music stop. Never let the music stop. Never let the music stop. Never let the music stop. Housing given up. Housing gonna stop. Give up your house. Stop. Give up your life. But we won't speak it to no ancestors. Stop. We won't speak it to no ancestors. Stop. We got work to do. Detroit has spirit building. We change its shirts depending on the cause of parade. We got real time spirit. Go to Woodbridge for the black bean burger. Enjoy the stuff. Value the cast. It's easy to put it into French and South Africa. Black men in Italian suits. Derrick May and Shade. Live at the Torino Music Festival. I'm the director of the music style. In Cuba. In Italy. In New York. In Atlanta. We never let the music stop. In South Africa. I left my heart in formation of New York Statue of Liberty. I saw joy rush through their veins. Colored in Soweto.  Everybody in my family, my friends in Detroit, looked like somebody in Soweto. Linton. Crazy Johnson. One of the most beautiful happens. They talk about madness. They call me mama champ. We love you mama champ. The mothership has landed in Mandela's home. Bojo told us to hold on tight. Don't let go. And we didn't. I was here when he spoke to a sold out crowd in the Detroit. Tiger stadium 1990. On the road. In Scotland. In Paris. In Amsterdam. In Morocco. Flying home. From Morocco. Me, my husband. Abby Lincoln and her trio. Lost the bike engine of a plane. We too close to the water. We too close to the water. I heard it in French. I catch pieces of Arabic. We ain't supposed to be. Seeing those folks, we gotta turn around. The plane's got more engines. The pilot said it in English. We are trapped at a table. With European American tourists. We know Abby Lincoln is a queen. It's jazz diva.  We too low to the water. We on the ground now. New plane in the morning. What kind of homes you like? Abby Lincoln asked. A Miri Baraka kind of homes. From your fan chest type home. She smiles. It's comfortable. Please don't ask.  Eat the couscous. They don't. They can't. They lean in. They ask. So are you a singer? Who brought you to Morocco? She shifts. She is second to excusing herself. She answers. The king and the queen. Then leaves. Rest in peace. Abby Lincoln. Rest in peace. Abby Lincoln. And Berlin. The German man grabs my arm. Asking her performance. In front of thousands of people. And pops them a flag. They said it's a shame. They don't love or appreciate you. In your own country. It's a shame. They don't love and appreciate you. In your own city. Never let the music stop. Never let the music stop. Remember who you are.  No, I'm a Americana.  In my ear. No, I'm Americana. Stop pretending you understand your experience. Drink the medicine with sugar. The aftertaste is better. After life is better. Live through the music. Watch your tongue, girl. Watch your mouth, brother. This is a white surpassed house. This is a choosing time. I'll be there. Don't give up your house.  Fall in your spirit there. Just go home. Stop. John Bogojevic. My name is Kristin Schumacher. And Vijay Mathew, who's holding down our live web streaming. We're out on the internet right now. The most before you leave. Winner the most. It's easy. In some ways, I got the easiest job because come up with ideas and figure out how we do it. But the work of actually getting it done, Ashley Sparks, right there. We're this part of a two-year cycle of events that we're doing. Over the next two years, we're going to be visiting four different communities. We're starting in Detroit. We're going to go to Appalachia, specifically, to Ireland, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee. From there, we're going to move on to New Orleans. And then we're going to bring everybody together, culminate all of these events in a large national learning exchange and convening in Honolulu in June 2013. So I want to invite you all to all of these events. These are amazing cities.  And quite frankly, we're trying to change the world. We're trying to make this a better place. We're trying to build community. And we're really lucky that in addition to all the local support that we had, people who got that idea and that vision, there were some national partners as well. Some funding support that we got that's just allowing this to happen came from the National Endowment for the Arts, came from the National Performance Network, NPN in New Orleans, and locally from the Kresge Foundation who believed in this project and was a big supporter of getting us here and for the entire cycle. And lastly, it's the contributions that work the support of our members. We're a member organization and a lot of people do a lot of work. They show up, they participate, and they're the ones that make it happen. So thank you to all of these individuals. Thank you to you all. Actually, I know you've been running kind of late and so I don't want to stand up here and talk, but I do just want to make sure that I give some context to what we're doing this weekend. So part of what we're doing is, we're a lot of ensemble theaters and many of our members, much of this work happens in and with community. It is people who belong to ensembles are members of their community and it got us to think about the relationship between place and art and how does art impact place and how does place impact art. And so that's one of the things that we're looking at over the course of the weekend. The big central question we're asking is how does art impact your community? And so over the weekend, we're going to be asking that question. We're going to be looking at the work, at the impact that artists and cultural workers have on communities and how cross sector, how different organizations are working together to make a difference, to address the pressing challenges, the pressing needs of a community. And so that's the work that we'll be looking at over the course of the weekend. We're asking four big questions through the lenses that we'll ask. How does art impact place? How does art, how does place impact art? What does this work look like and how does this work work? So those are some of the questions that we'll be asking. We'll be looking at something to keep in the back of your mind as we go through the weekend. So that is that. A component of this event is that we have what we're calling a fellowship program. Two people from each of the four communities that are listed are going to be attending each and every one of these events. And they're going to be working. They're going to be looking at what's going on. We're going to be supporting the work that they do in their own home communities. It was a way for NET to give back to our hosts who give us so much. This is a way for us to do something in return. So we have seven of our eight cohorts here. So cohorts, if you could just raise your hand or stand up. If you're already standing. So we've got a few over there. We have some over there. Look, these individuals may come up and start talking to you. They may start asking questions and engage with them. Because they're here working. They're here so that we can do this work more and do this better. The last group I just want to acknowledge people who are in the house that I'll do a lot for us is our board of directors. So if you're a NET board member, please stand in. NET board members. Great, great, great. So those are the things I just want to make sure we got said, they got stated at the top. This is a weekend long event. Some of you are just here for tonight. That's cool. Some of you might want to come and join us for the weekend. So you're invited and you're welcome. We're going to be all over the city. So join us. And the weather. Thank you Detroit. So Ashley, I think we're ready to move on. Yes? Yes. So should I just do that in order to see this all happening live? So we're going to start this all off with this panel of Dan and Kay who is with Rogue HAA. And so I wonder about Dan and the panelists who are going to join us for this next piece to come on up. Dan and panelists, come on up. Welcome. I'm not sure if this is... Can you hear me? We have a few technological challenges in front of us, but that's pretty much part of the course. Remember we did these things.  I'll back up in a second. I have to tell you though, honestly I'm incredibly intimidated to be up here right now. I'm just a humble architect who's standing in the space with stage lights and there's spoken word things going on. We have spoken people. So a little intimidating, maybe some of my guests share that same feeling, but anyway I do. So before we get to the presentation we have I thought I would just kind of expand a little bit on who I am and who we are within Rogue HAA. I'm an architect at Hamilton Anderson Associates and in that term we actually developed a group called Rogue HAA and so it's the acronym for Hamilton Anderson with a tail in there. And it's really a group that's a kind of design collaborative that's intended to kind of fuel extensive conversation in the community about design to raise a level of discourse and also to impact the way in which design interacts with our lives within the city. So an event like this for us is kind of right on the money and quite stimulating for us because it really begins to connect a lot of the dots that we try to work with every day in our own practice. So before we get into a little bit further also I wanted to just extend some of some thank you's as well although we just went through a round of them to Mark Valdes and Ashley and all the folks here who have made this possible they've done it from a distance for quite a while and have been really helpful with us to get things together and we really do appreciate that and even though they're part of the network of ensemble theaters they've assured me that even though we're not very theatrical people we're supposed to be here I'm still trying to figure that out but bear with us so imagine this as like its own little performance so we'd also like to thank all of you for being here too there's other places to be there's a lot going on this weekend galleries are opening the African World Festival is starting there's a lot happening so we do appreciate you being here and before we go I also want to thank Miki Sa who's behind the computer here who actually just got this thing working without Miki that's all we've done thank you very much and last I want to thank our panelists they've volunteered their time tonight to be with us we're very appreciative of that they're busy and we're just happy to have them with us we have started here Phillip Laurie creator of Detroit Lives Yelka Ellison with Eastern Market over here and we have Oya Hissi here with US Social Forum and a few other film festival and a number of things that you're going to share with us and also Maikhan here with Speed Pulse Rematch so each person who's on the panel here represents obviously a different kind of perspective on how art and creative practice begins to engage the city you can start to see and kind of triangulate the different lines that exist here and that's really what we're trying to explore tonight this is really a conversation about it is about cities it's about art and creativity it's about development it's about authenticity passion, struggle of all facets of development and how it weaves into our lives and it's really about what happens when all these aspects actually collide and how they can actually take a national narrative on what's happening with things like this and how the city can actually begin to draw through a land of events within Detroit and determine how it actually translates so I'm going to give you a little bit of a quick preview and then we're going to get into it I promise so historically the role of art within development or revitalization of cities has been seen as cynically at times as one of unwitting accomplice to gentrification and a complicit partner to the exploitation of creative capacity in this interpretation art exists only for a moment as a noble armored guard free of incumbrances before becoming instrumentalized by the very elements it actually sought to move beyond from past examples such as Soho, Manhattan, Southern in London, or even contemporary examples in places like Over the Lines and Sinati you can see where leading edge artists in other creative types begin to give way to something that's potentially more now actually than the squalor and disinvestment that had previously existed and ultimately actually undermine the diverse rate of creative folks who actually got things going to begin with. So this is a story we know well it's not necessarily a story or a narrative that we talk about a lot within Detroit because we do see we do see art as being somehow always positive and I think we're trying to look at that and investigate that a little bit more tonight and see what happens when we go further down the road. So what if the art and other creative forces in Detroit could overcome what seems to be a predetermined path? Could the enormity of our challenges here in Detroit actually be addressed and could the collective resolve that we have here and our unique ability to kind of integrate with one of the artists and designers professionals, actually a bridge of golf that's contributed to really the punchline that results from so many other cities when they get kind of sanitized if you will, and how all of these groups actually leverage the knowledge base from one another to effect change retain the integrity of their intellectual projects and create a new model for collaboration that actually contradicts the implicit Darwinistic growth regime model that so many actually attribute to quote-unquote revitalization in capitalist economies. So five years down the road can be actually sustained in an event like this in this space with all, with everybody here, right, without paying tens of thousands of dollars to do so. So, you know, rather than just talking about how great creativity is in general, I think we all agree that it is in this room, we want to talk a little bit more about, you know, what happens after all the good stuff that's going on in Detroit actually comes to fruition, right, and things really start clicking even more. What happens to the voices that actually got us here, and how can we make sure that we can actually somehow arrest a potential decline and actually keep things moving in a more creative way. So, I think it's particularly a pointed question for a lot of us here on the panel, and for me as a practicing designer, that you know, as many of us work to actually create a Detroit more sustainable, attractive and competitive, with a higher quality of life, of which everybody would like to attain in the city, are we actually losing something along the way and so how we actually balance that out. So, thank you, Erin, forgive me for that very long intro that I don't have there. So, what we want to do first is actually bring up Philip Laurie. He's going to share some stuff with us here. Philip is a social entrepreneur with experience in sourcing and creative marketing firms in Chicago, again, importantly. Laurie returned to his hometown here in Detroit, 2008, to start a creative agency called Detroit Mids. Many of you have already seen this online and probably frequently decided regularly. We're not tackling a project. I'll take every chance to jump on a plane to Columbia, or to sit on the couch to find Ben and Jerry's history. So, with that, maybe we'll start off with you being the assistant director. Thanks. Okay, so I have 30 seconds each slide if that all works out. Okay. So, Detroit Mids Creative Agency social brand, what does that mean? The creative agency side is a little bit easier to understand. We take on clients in film production, print and motion graphics. And the social branding side is a little more exciting, whereby we use those skills to create a variety of different things in the city. Public art we produced a feature length documentary. We have a clothing line, paper goods, things like that, that overall begin to utilize a variety of different multi-assets to reposition the perception of the city. Next slide. Just some clients that we've done stuff for that you might have seen things. So, we work with Skidmore Art Detroit Creative Corp. Center Midtown, blah, blah, blah. Next slide. Now, this is just some snapshots of what we've developed online. Maybe you can face it over Twitter on our site. Next slide. Now, social branding again. What are we talking about here? I was saying street art. Well, how does that actually work? So, things like painting positive message-based murals on enormous walls throughout the city that people commute by every day. Well, how does that actually have an effect? We'd like to believe that public art in general encourages the growth of the community that it serves, but then also, depending on how you position it, it can have effects on the people that pass by.  That's not what I heard. And so, I think that's a story about something in particular that's near and dear to that heart. So, other things, filmmaking, we're currently touring a screen across the country and through Europe called After the Factory. It premiered at the DIA this past February and it's a documentary that looks at solutions for post-industrial cities through Detroit and a very similar musician city in Poland called Wuge. Wuge was an enormous manufacturer of textiles when communism was dismantled, the industry collapsed and left them in many of the same conditions that the city of Detroit. So, the film kind of takes a hopeful look at what comes after the factory and it's coming through the people in these places that are answering that question. All in all, it's about rethinking social advocacy and how media and multimedia engages people and how different forms of media development can collide to create these outcomes that perhaps we don't fully understand and sometimes we can in a chart. And so, with that, I will give the mic to the next person. Thank you very much. Oh, and that's just some pictures of stuff. We're building a race car track on a vacant lot at the Georgia Street Community Garden. That was the oh, how am I hitting more slides than I thought. I didn't hit too soon! Yeah, so if you go back one slide, sorry. So, upper left, we're building this remote control race car track on a vacant lot at the Georgia Street Community Garden. Kids will earn car time by volunteering and working with the neighborhoods elected. We've got mural on the lower left, snapshot on the website in the middle, a t-shirt in the middle of the right, a screen grab from the film, things like that. The next slide is just kind of the future of the company, so obviously growing our client base and continuing to lead this Detroit narrative into commercial work and stuff that people are hiring us for. So, in effect, to kind of change the narrative, to change the perception. And then flash those social advocacy muscles and sort of engage people with the city in ways that they didn't expect to create these undesired, wonderful outcomes. Thank you. Can you guys see the screen okay? No. Tell me now! Alright, I'll start over with you. Okay, so we won't turn over, but maybe we'll... So, our next actually, before we go, just so you know, what we're going to do is have each of the panelists present a little bit about what they do and then we're actually going to come back around and ask a couple questions and throw it out to the audience so everybody here can ask them questions. That's what this is leading to. I didn't reveal that earlier on. So, our next panelist is Yolka Ellison. She works at the Eastern Market Corporation and which is a perfect combination of her love for cities and development with her background in finance. Returning to Detroit last summer after living for 10 years in Los Angeles has been everything that she was hoping for and more. Originally from Czechoslovakia Yolka continues to be amazed by her journey from Eastern Europe to Eastern Market. In 20 years, it's one of the last remaining functioning through districts in the U.S. and it's been spent by city blocks where in Detroit it's been feeding hundreds of thousands of people primarily in the southeast Michigan and like I said it's one of the last functioning through districts it has not been developed into an entertainment district or a loft district and this preservation of views is what we are focusing on mostly these days next week. So we are a regional food hub what does that mean? That means that food gets sold, gets processed gets redistributed around here this creates an immense economic engine for the district as well as for the surrounding neighborhood. As a regional food hub we make sure that all the elements of the food processing system is aligned and like I mentioned we are very lucky that if you look at this map majority of the uses here are still food related and thank you. So I work for Eastern Market Corporation apart from running the retail and the wholesale market we also serve as a district development engine and a community development engine from the previous map you can see that to the west there's freeway to the south there is a freeway so our neighborhood and our community is mostly to the east of us so we are in a business of making sure that others stay in business these others are our customers they are necessarily the people who come here on Saturday for the retail market they are the sellers at the market and we group them into three clusters next please they are the growers the growers can be a multi-generational farm from across the state whose family has been coming here from the 1800s it can be a person who has been growing produce in one of the over 1400 community farms in Detroit and they sell in form of a call at the market or it can be this newest class of specialty food vendors so your pickles, your heroities your sausages this is a really exciting group that has blossomed at the market next please so the second cluster is street vendors these guys are embodied through entrepreneurial spirit they are there, rain and shine summer, winter selling socks and instances and posters and sports equipment they are part of some of the great economy they are not our official vendors they don't pay us salty but at the same time we strive to get them engaged in the conversation about the development of the market and we try very hard not to disturb this occupancy they bring to the market while trying to do infrastructure improvements because we are talking about buildings and roads and sidewalks that are 100 years old or more and it's not easy and the third group is the artists so art is understood differently by different groups so one of the negative side effects of artists moving into the district is the increased maintenance costs for us in terms of however as an opportunity how to turn this problem into an opportunity we came up with an idea next please for something called the street art fest where we would love to engage our community the business community building owners and business owners together with the artists, the peggers and also the builders the architects and designers and A3 teams that could just make beautiful noise throughout the market that hopefully the people participating and working on them would respect having them and also anybody in the building community would offer advice in sort of a clinic to the building owners in terms of structural improvements or maybe aesthetic improvements and that way all of these groups that right now might not be communicating very effectively involved and feel ownership of this process and make the the district that much healthier next please so like I mentioned the artists are moving to the district I think this has to do with the authenticity of eastern markets authenticity is something that is very highly valued in Detroit and it is still something that we are threatened to lose because we are primarily a food district so in the last two years we have had a number of galleries open on trash on the priors you can see a vintage leather brand actually two of those in the district we have these amazing collaborative hacker spaces and how do we we understand gentrification in terms of displacement displacement of uses so how do we preserve our character as a functioning food district while trying to complete the challenge that comes with next please you know we have my trucks driving around here between midnight and five a.m. during the week we have slaughterhouses we have really loud what might be called obnoxious uses and how do you balance this with this creative class that wants to be here wants to be part of the experience the coffee shops the boutiques also helping existing business owners make their businesses more profitable better more in the 21st century so we understand art is something that adds value and adding value and therefore creating opportunities doesn't have to be just a can you go back please thank you doesn't have to be I mean for yeah doesn't have to be a piece of art a sculpture painting it can be a public asset so just to the east of you such a public asset exists it's called the Quindercut and it's a below grade former rail and it was converted into bike path that connects the riverfront and right now that ends at Greshas which is this big street behind us we have been lucky with a number of other organizations to get an award of $10 million from public transportation to connect the Quindercut this would be phase 2 and then connect to the link to other parts of Detroit so the phase 2 of the Quindercut has buildings coming all the way down to the trail which presents an amazing real estate development opportunity and again creating value and creating ways how to maybe channel the and spill the artistic energy from East America this thing more to the Quindercut because if you haven't looked before the landscape people the landscape people the exercise people everybody will find something there that comes together in a really nice harmony so like I mentioned there's an immense opportunity for residential development this is something that we as talking and discussing and being asked to do and we feel that doing it in a way that doing it in a way that creates complete district is what we want to definitely encourage because we talk about complete streets where you have a lot of users that might be separating people in cars, people in bikes, people walking and they all learn how to coexist so we want to have a complete district we want to have a place where you can have the food businesses you can have the processing areas you can have the restaurants you can have the artists and you can have people living and next please so to this end we are working on rewriting our regulatory framework we are actually proposing an overlay zone for the market and you can see kind of the room is the market the red kind of a shoe or a shoe shape that would be the commercial the purple is more kind of the more intense uses, the more industrial area and orange to the side is the residential so another way that we are working on increasing values on the near east side is by creating sustainable mechanisms whether it's natural such as unearthing this creek it's called Bloody Run Creek that winds throughout most of east side of Detroit or financing mechanisms we would like to develop a tax increment finance district in eastern market that would be a great tool to encourage development but also to then connect to other projects such as the Bloody Run Creek so I hope that those of you who don't know much about eastern market maybe aware it's more than just a place where you come on Saturdays to buy your fruits and vegetables and you're plotting various videos but I find it a really really interesting place because in Michigan the agricultural tradition is very very fresh in the minds of people it's not too long ago that somebody's grandfather at the farm and sold at the market and I think Michigan is really special in this way we have the second largest crop diversity after California but unfortunately we are nowhere near they are in terms of food processing jobs so food is a great job generating factor thank you so we're going to do a presentation I do like that thing listen so we're going to move forward here Oya Okisi is with us and she's an activist artist and an educator she uses art it's a tool to heal educate and empower the community on a local, national and international level Oya is the founder and director of Detroit Women of Color International Film Festival she also served as a share of the cultural working group and served as the Detroit representative for the 2010 United States Social Forum Oya Okisi so this is an old fire from the Detroit Women of Color International Film Festival it was actually held in Easton Market at Johansson Charles Gallery I started the film festival because we have an amazing film community here in Detroit where the voices of women of color in particular were absent in the conversation so as I began to work with artists across the country my first film was Know the Raid Documentary by Irisha Simmons it discussed interracial rape within the Black community and I bought together panelists and healers and brothers and sisters who were survivors of rape I didn't have any money I don't have $2 million or funders or anyone it came out of my pocket but it also came out of the popular community I went to churches, I went to men's groups I went to women's groups and people gave and so that's how it happened and what I noticed was when we had shown the film people were calling me in tears because they had never told me they had never talked about their experiences their challenges and when we came together as a community it was an audience of men and women of all ages and they opened up in a way I've never seen before because the film allowed them stories of others to feel comfortable to share their own stories and so when this happened we went into this deep dialogue and continued even after the film and I was like okay now we got to do something more with this and so the Detroit Women in Color International Film Festival we evolved from there we're going into our fourth year this year the last two years I took off to do the United States Social Forum and I also worked with the World Social Forum the United States Social Forum came here in 2010 and let me tell you I was insane when I look at the level of work that I was involved with during the Social Forum it kind of blows my mind because when you're in the flow you don't stop and so it was nonstop work and eventually I murdered out but that's another conversation so the goal of the United States so the goal of the United States Social Forum was to bring grassroots organizations, NGOs or any progressive group, any activists who wanted to create change in the world and so our model was the World Social Forum and they kept challenging us in the United States so what are you going to do because you're in the belly of the beast so what are you going to do other than just come to the conference and have these conversations and so the Rochester School of Justice and the other organizations got together and tried it in 2007 in Atlanta and so they were looking for a new spot so Detroit stepped up because you're like if you want to know how to battle the beast come to Detroit if you want to know how to survive come to Detroit it was at a time where the economic bubble had burst and the illusions of the little class were no longer there people had to deal with realities of gentrification and a more conservative government that was not being the needs of the people we're not even going to talk about war and other issues that we were dealing with immigration, violence in our community and economic violence which we call poverty and so here in Detroit was a wonderful example of how about how look at this if you want to know how to do something better with your lives we're not here waiting for someone to come and save us we're never out and so the United States social form came here and represented we went across the country we represented the United States social form and worked with 34 countries around the world it was a challenge the opening ceremony itself we led it with the indigenous community because we want to honor the voices of the people who are denying the voice they on board art for all of me for many different aspects that were in there we had about 10,000 people who walked through Woodward all the way up to Colville Hall take a look at the next slide so the music performances I was ahead of culture we had Heart Plaza which I hope some of you go to see if you're from out of town it's a beautiful space we had two stages we also had a children's art village we had an art gallery the basement area of the Heart Plaza in addition to that we had an artist's lab in Colville Hall in addition to that we had a film festival that was held in another spot and it was hard because we were on border city so we had to deal with the Detroit Police Department Homeland Security and immigration it was a challenge every day but people like Jessica Kerr-War who stepped up to the plate and supported the United States social reform and represented Detroit we had people like John Trudeau Sonny Patterson so many amazing artists from around the world kept artists who just showed up I'm from Ecuador so could you give me a room it was a powerful situation and art was springing up spontaneously in the streets and at Colville Hall it was part of the PMA the People Movement Assembly and the Plenary and my goal was to make sure that art was incorporated into every aspect of the movement because art moves the movement it's the voice of the people the poetry, the music, the bands and we'll show you some examples of other ways that art can be used to transform through social justice next slide please so this is the film festival that we held there and this is an example of Oliver Stone's film South of the Border we have representatives from Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina who spoke on a panel to talk about the role of social justice leadership in South America and the Caribbean it was so crowded people you can't see here but people actually lay on the stage because they were so determined to be a part of that conversation it was a lot of changing and it's interesting because as an organizer I didn't get to participate in this I just made it happen with other dedicated artists who were determined to make sure that we have another tool to express ourselves beyond corporate media next slide please this is the Children's Social Forum down here many others Elizabeth Whitaker and the others played a key role in making sure that our children are always represented because we start early and we ask that their lives should be filled with joy and beauty no matter what's happening around them and love and honesty is going to make that happen and so at the Children's Fire Village it was amazing and beautiful matter of fact he even had one of the largest powwows in North America after the United States Social Forum we have representatives from all over the United States and from Canada next slide please this is the Cultural Arts Lab it was amazing artists from around the country started contacting me and they said we need a space for the artists just to come together and work together and build and so over 500 artists will come through this space to collaborate and also utilize this as a way for the puppets, that will be part of the artistic ceremonies a part of the protests that we have around the city we also have work for gays when people came from around the country to come and volunteer this video Detroit and Guards Detroit has over 1500 community gardens and farms here and so we invited people to come and work and help with building up the city but we have to make sure that they understood once again you're not coming to save us you're coming to work with us and be a part of this and how do we learn from each other how do we build with each other and that's one of the greatest lessons of the social forum is how do we honor each other's presence each other's work and how do we create the change that we want to see in this world beyond just the conversation next slide please Detroit expanded, there are many people who couldn't come to the social forum due to economics, transportation immigration issues, it was kind of a hot time, we had to deal with some people trying to report and so I worked with a team led this and so we set up hubs all around the world we have hubs in Japan and Brazil Argentina, South Africa Senegal you name it, it was all over the world where they actually set up like screenings we did a live stream of the events that happened at the social forum and we actually interacted with each other so it was a tool for us to stay connected around the world with people who could not be there, next slide this is an example of some of the work that was done and the creativity laugh, we created these beautiful pieces of art that we took throughout this city to challenge the Detroit incinerator that's causing health problems within our community that's the poison in our children health problems with asthma depleting the neighborhood and so people came off from all over the country and not only did they have these beautiful songs based on the songs they had concerts and they challenged people like, we had a protest like that before, we were like, yeah this is Detroit so this is a part of how you incorporate art into every aspect of things that you do, next slide this is an example of the gardens that we're going to be starting so work with a part of red as a sister's here and you try to have a team of sisters about working with we're going to neighborhood gardens where we restore the neighborhood that we also have live concerts film showings people are going to come together and have community meetings along with creating healthy foods for themselves empowering them and teaching them how to take care of before themselves, providing jobs and also teaching them how to eat healthier and work together to restore our neighborhoods, thank you sushi chef founder of street culture mash bikes cut now he's a Detroit based creative excuse me, he's a founder of street culture mash, a Detroit based creative development team Han is a dreamer and a producer he identifies opportunities and collaborates with like minds to make dreams reality Mike? okay so what are windows as a project that we started last year we basically saw downtown Detroit as it was really sad to see how many buildings were downtown that were abandoned and vacant for so long and so from the 1500 block which is where Grand Circus Park is where like the entertainment district, Fox Town where that is separates I guess between there and the downtown core campus marshes 70% maybe 60-70% is vacant and so we saw that as a we saw it as an opportunity to activate these spaces with the best local and international artists to feel like a free museum quality space so these were all open to the public and they were funded initially by 3D3 East and Street Culture Mash and put this on because they're just sitting there and so it evolved and we worked with over 35 different artists who participated in the Detroit Design Festival designers and people of all walks and these are a couple of New York based artists and then we of course worked with the very first slide was some of the best great media artists from Detroit, Kobe Solomon and Phil 3000 and so this project we saw it as a great opportunity but we understood that it was a temporary one that these were commercial spaces that we were never going to get to really really play and make an impact then and so we we created our content and tried to tell stories for these people and help market the talent that's here so one example of this is an artist called Mello, he's a local emerging artist so we did this piece for him and got him a commission little piece with vitamin water and so this is like 55 seconds music is by Baslava and so everything Detroit made produce artists a little bit and so we feel it's really important to help share their stories and do it in a compelling fashion and so by being able to help these artists get connected to brands then maybe it's not so bad that we're doing something that is so temporary and so we really try to maximize the opportunity for people that are involved because artists there, they're don't need their time we're able to help cover some of the costs for the work but it seems more opportunities now so that was our first project and this is one that's more recent that happened with Riviera 28 from Conservancy right around corner and you also get a chance to go up to Quintercup this is where at least the market grasps at the entrance this is 5,000 to 3,000 who is considered along with the shades one of the godfathers for PD here so the Quintercup was a place where people really cut their teeth back in the day and so it's really been special to be able to bring some of these artists back a few weeks to go down there and really not getting commission to do that and being appreciated and giving the time to create amazing pieces this piece I've got a front page article I'm going to do a pre-press and this is the second front page article we've helped get I guess for artists the first was for Woodward windows and this was all in the past year Woodward's made a huge impact and we feel like it's not good enough just to tell their story and so we really want to help make a home and create a place and so the MCHD is a national historic building it's an Alburcon design building in Cass Park and it sits Kitty Quarantine State to help transform this building which is so much potential it's so incredibly beautiful but it's being underutilized and so we're going to work with Woodward State to all the creative talent that's here and hopefully a lot of homes for that an affordable functional space which is often hard to come by in the city and so Woodward windows we then want to have a place like MCHD where we actually really get to work with people and then offer space and help them build their businesses through offering a functional space and then concept is sort of the last thing that we I want to share with you it's a project that we're doing for the fall it's in the suburbs and it's actually a gross point and so this is not really a gross point it's an image but we have a home that we get free reign to do what we please as it's going to be demolished and so we're going to showcase a lot of great talent here in the space that's un-traditional and then couple that with a sustainable sushi concept and so carrying two types of kind of an art together so thanks Mike so we've got a little bit of I'm going to switch mics so we've got a little bit of time left and I thought we might do perfect so with a little bit of time we have left I want to ask the panel a question maybe prompt a response from each of them and then open it up to the floor for a few questions before we move on so a couple things that struck me as they probably struck most of you in the audience here that I think point to an important point of dialogue the first is the fact that some of the presentations that you've seen tonight the conversations that have come out of them are really not conversations that often occur in the same space with the same people at the same time and I think that in a way the confrontation with those perspectives and those realities is pretty rich and can shape part of what we're going to talk about because in everybody's own way here on the panel from film to graffiti to art and advocacy to actually running a district even though these pretty disparate things stand apart from another they intersect in a lot of different ways and in fact if you seem to dislike that it's been fairly common references to certain places and certain ideas so the question that we prompted in the beginning of the panel discussion was how do we maintain the same kind of rich diversification of art and creativity within the city without somehow losing ourselves along the way maybe giving up more than we thought as a place that becomes more desirable and more attractive for reasons that maybe we none of this in the room so if we think about that one thing I started to kind of chart out sheet of paper as I was listening was this idea of how do you potentially manage the creative, the expansive growth of a place like Detroit that is managed in an appropriate way because if you listen to everything everybody is saying there are so many different factors that go into this and each of them are pointing in a different direction potentially a direction that pulls and tugs at what we're doing in a degree of stasis so the idea of the intellectual project of what everybody is trying to do actually kind of stays put and remains authentic the idea of growing a business growing in districts remaining authentic growing in craft itself actually growing food growing voices growing awareness growing opportunity and growing equity each of these things somehow pull against one another in a healthy way and I'm wondering if I could put that question on to you guys if you hear all these things that are happening simultaneously that sometimes seem to be countered to one another on the surface do you see how these different things that you're all doing may intersect and they actually make a more creative more sustainable Detroit down the road I need to put it out there that when we talk about making Detroit more attractive, more beautiful let's have a conversation about for whom this is for the people who live here and gentrification is a very hot topic for me because we're encouraging people to come from out of the state, out of the country from all over which is not a problem we love them but once again we're having that conversation about working with the people who live here instead of pushing us out of our own spaces and that acknowledging that we have art that already exists here that we have people who are creating beauty constantly we have fighters and dreamers and people who keep the whole alive in this city all the time, it's not someone once again coming to save us so when we talk about beauty let's talk about the beauty that already exists and we're going to talk about the beauty together because we're going to be talking about the man houses well, Michigan welfare rights other organizations are taking over abandoned homes and putting homeless people in them because that would be a place to settle beauty by that let's work together in that way I'm trying to find ways and we're going to talk about building Detroit, let's talk about the whole of Detroit and the people who have lived here all their lives and invested in sacrifice people in Detroit empowered them through the urban gardening and through providing training and opportunities to be connected maybe with the next stage once you are done with your garden you want to sell produce once you want to start teaching other people just support and training in every step of that way that's the way that I call it we contribute as for art like I said authenticity in my opinion is a really big thing in Detroit and having I think it's about respect towards artists and farmers and everybody in the city so I'm not saying that you can't have one without the other but I think that as long as you respect each other and support each other you will get there ok well yeah we want to turn out to the audience here anyway so hello there you are I'm sorry Marcia I write my name Marcia Music and the very fact that this important gathering is scheduled during the same weekend of a massive African World Festival is indicative of a lack of connection with the artistic community that already exists at his library in the African community because that is one of the cultural institutions of this city and it virtually guarantees a lack of attendance in many of the arts circles here in Detroit to this event here so I just wanted to raise that I had some correspondence with a couple of the I don't know if I can believe that they were organizers here regarding that it indicated that there had been attempts to dovetail some of the activities or times or whatever but the very fact that the problem exists in the first place that in a city like this in an arts seminar or weekend and what you're discussing arts in this community and to have that type of a scheduling conflict is something that has to be looked at as far as your future relationships with the city so we emailed yeah and just a little just for total transparency about how this weekend was chosen so this is part of the national cycle and we were really hoping to do this next weekend here in Detroit that would have been the intention when we started planning a year ago and as logistics and community conversations started to come about it really became about housing and so there's a certain amount of like working with the logistics of the place and as a visitor recognizing that we are entering and we were in conversation with folks at the African World Museum tomorrow night part of the festival is going to be there so that folks will get to go and see that so we know that we have been in conversation and we're trying to be really hard and it just became the scheduling snap through and I think it's a great I think you know a wonderful point for yourself to use it as an opportunity to create as you look at the four things that were mentioned when everybody was introduced I think a lot of there's a lot of cross-pollination occurring and just in general to look at the R's we're seeing various art forms coming together to create things that maybe we didn't expect and I think let's use this as an opportunity there are people coming from out of town for this festival there's obviously that festival going on what's been done has been done and we can look at it as a problem but we can also try and maybe create some situations where because these two festivals are happening at the same time you know we create outcomes that nobody really expected either, say if anybody had another question make them out of that is there any other question yeah I don't know go for it but what I'm finding really interesting and feel appreciative of is the fact that the four of you have shared the stories of your individual work as a part of communities here in Detroit and that also in this conversation we're trying to I guess look for linkages in terms of how the different projects and bodies of work you do connect to larger efforts here in the city and it feels like right now in the last five or seven minutes we've started to here we are like some of us have been in town for eight hours first time I've ever been to Detroit in my life and I'm really excited to be here for Chicago, thank you thank you so much, thank you and so I'm excited to of course hear complicated conversations that resonate with me as someone who lives in Chicago but I'd also love the opportunity to maybe hear from the four of you you have an audience here of a lot of folks who do arts based organizing and activity in different parts of the country, what are the challenges that you find yourself facing here in Detroit that you would love to say to the rest of us here's some things we're learning here here's some things we're struggling with here here's some things we have no idea how we're going to move forward but here are the questions that we're asking as we try to move forward because I would love to hear that particularly in a room where the complications are clearly here they're not all worked out but what are the questions that you want to say here's some questions that we hope when you return to the work you're doing that you keep in mind because they're questions that resonate here and that are challenging here one of the issues is as we have this conversation about gentrification let's talk about who gets funded and who doesn't where they get funded and where they don't give let's talk about them so we can have you know so in terms of racism it's a lot of well Detroit and the suburbs here we're still very much dealing with issues of equity of respect of a state government who's at war with the city trying to take it over at the same time that we're struggling to survive so as artists not only are we dealing with making sure that our art gets out there but how do we survive in this we're talking about restructuring the city and deciding which areas get funded we still have to pay taxes no matter where you're at but certain areas get funded certain areas get police support certain areas get support from the ambulance wherever the list goes on and then some don't I've lived in places where you can call the police Indian Village they come three minutes I've lived on Lauderd and Finkle area no matter what you say somebody can be dead in the middle of the street and talk about the reality that art is not separate from the people who live there in our situations and so every city is different but once again in Detroit racism is real and so certain artists if you're with the flow sometimes you get paid sometimes you don't but if you challenge the system often you don't get paid you have to find creative ways to make that happen that means how do we build with each other how do we have self-determination we're not dependent upon fun foundations to validate our art that we can talk about that I think about on a regular basis because that's what I do captain and she's facilitator so I'll be on the track tomorrow when we go to use the Shakur's place somebody just said like just plug me up it's real my dad he had a heart attack and it took 20 minutes for the ambulance to get there it took 29 minutes if it had gotten there in the 28th minute he would have lived and that was six years ago and so it's very real I lived I grew up on the east side of Detroit I lived in New York for 20 years I just came home I lived in Brooklyn for 12 for those 20 years and so of course I'm a gentrification vet I lived in a neighborhood that the real estate people called Clinton Hill I didn't know that time to go vote for Dinkins when I was 18 and I was like the lady was like where you live baby I was like I live in Clinton Hill she was like you know such thing but right now they call Bushwick East Williamsburg so I've seen this happen I've seen and one of the ways that my realtor got me to my apartment was I took the G train and by taking the G train I was able to avoid Fulton Avenue until of course I lived there and I realized the G train was the train the easier train the G train sucks so when you come to Detroit just answer that question about having been here 8 hours I mean clearly stay on your track and enjoy the city but go outside I mean I think that's the first thing and I don't have answers I'm happy that after decades of a complete separation in terms of the racism and the suburbs and the city that some of that has begun to melt and I think from Chicago I mean it would be an inversion of your city you know people who live on the south side of Chicago have to take 3 hours worth of buses just to get to fast food jobs so we don't we're not powerless in the city in the way that black people in Chicago are in terms of this utter separation of the racism of your city but we are we've always been surrounded it's always been like a donut in the middle and we'll talk more about that because you can't get around talking about justification in terms of Detroit, you just can't but progress is being made you know I love that a lot of progress is being made over food I mean the way that I got to see south Chicago is that Charles's chicken thing or whatever so certainly come into the neighborhood and eat there's a way that people are showing you Detroit or showed me that Brooklyn apartment where you just stay in this area they've renamed Cast Corridor midtown and you stay along this Woodward Corridor that abruptly cuts off at the Boston Edison district and you don't see the rest of the city and again it's not about you know being all militant about it I'm a lifelong Detroiter but guess what after my dad died because it's safer there she's a single woman now and if the if the ambulance doesn't come for 29 minutes when you tell them that your husband's having a heart attack you can imagine how long it takes the police to come and I don't necessarily believe in an increased police presence but you're certainly going to be nice and safe in this area because they've decided just as if they have in Harlem for instance where they're trying to flip that neighborhood in terms of gentrification they've occupied it with the police so that you have a police state to make way for gentrification what Giuliani did city-wide we continue to use this model we don't want that model in Detroit and you know have a good time our conversation the direction is going freedom ain't free come on and we can't fight we can't name we can't get angry if they don't give us money to do what we want to do and then we don't pay we're crazy on money ourselves you cannot expect somebody who doesn't understand you or your mission or your passion to pay for your dream so if you want to make something happen whether it's here or the Brooklyn Railroad it is you'd have to be willing to pay for yourself and convincing people who will benefit to participate in that and that second thing is the most challenging thing because we still have this lay mentality about expecting somebody to give us a grant which is a new form of change because then we have to modify the program to fit their needs right? right? because if I am I won't be happy so we really need to understand that things like this and conversations like this are about us doing things for ourselves and then the only people in Calgary coming over to him we are in Calgary all right? so we can argue about gentrification and we can argue about institutional racism and we can argue about not getting paid but we can argue about our own passion of making what we want to happen happen that's only our if we don't do it, it is only ours that we will be receiving the grant making sense? yeah I can't beg the same people who are challenging right, right so my issue is when I talk when we talk about gentrification in particular these are people who are utilizing our community that we pay tax dollars for that we sacrifice for it's our land it's our home, it's our city and so when you have certain areas where the government is complicit with these foundations to support certain artists, certain programs that don't benefit the majority of the people who have the ones who are bearing the weight of that I'm not talking about gentrification I'm talking about the politics of it and I'm always for self-determination but in the midst of self-determination you're not going to do it on my back you're not going to do it on the city where I pay taxes you're not going to do it where we who come from outside to come and live in places where they don't pay sources but you drain us to take care of them that's what's happening here in Detroit in zones where they barely pay taxes but you will tax them out for 40 years plus to the point where we're struggling to maintain them with little services but those areas that pay little taxes give more services and then we call it that progress that's not correct that's what we're doing nobody said that I think everybody said we needed them to save us that was my point all along we don't need you to save us even part of it work with us that's my constant thing self-determination so I think both gentlemen and your comments I would like to see what my question is and how to solve some of these issues is that if the city has a plethora of dormant assets property, vacant land, homes things that need to be fixed but if the people who are spending their time and energy on those places to revitalize them is there a way for us to figure out an equity model so that they can earn that property in that space that they're actively pursued artists who are painting doors to board houses or whatever no one's paying them to do that they're doing it on their own so why not put that time and energy towards the space of that that's what I think is much about okay this is good hi I'm here too today my born name is Latrice and that's very short for those people who live here and I own that and I own it here too today and I've been living outside the church for about 20 years and we kind of had some of the same real estate I was in Clinton Hill New York California doing performance art and I'm really proud of this city I'm proud of this space and this opportunity right now and wow don't you just feel it you know race, gentrification you can't escape these kind of conversations in America in any city where we have we're talking about power and who holds it and who gets to determine and make decisions for people power and land I'm really interested in hearing and sorry to my back to these amazing people I'm really interested in hearing about what our thinking is about power and land in spaces where we all live you want everybody's having this conversation everybody should come in if you know what I'm talking about okay so we can't escape it but at the same time be uncomfortable it's uncomfortable we're not running away from it I feel like we're confronting it the issue that I'm hearing is that who has access to some of these conversations how do you talk about people you know about empowering a people and they're not in the same room and so when we go to our organizations when we do our arms you know like she says we can't do it for folks so I'm interested in hearing what kind of like egalitarian relationships are people building where actually they have power to you know get their own thing done whether it be housing whether it be jobs or economics you know I have four uncles who are in their sixties and have been on for about 20 years all their disability up from working in other factories and I heard something mention about post factory something I'm not sure post yeah and I'm saying these are people's lives this is almost like walking into a part time in South Africa that's why you feel the tension is thick you know just because it's America it doesn't mean it's thick right is anything below anything below Canada it's south those are hard conversations especially for artists but I'm saying who's having success where people who are normally disenfranchised you know really able to sustain themselves on their own because some of us have a critique of the not-for-profit industrial complex and we're trying to figure out ways that we can we can sustain ourselves with our own money in our communities artists and you know not have our communities not necessarily taken over but preserved you know for our elders and for generations to come who's got success stories thank you you're doing great work yeah well success stories about well for instance working with the garden with the children and giving incentives to get them involved yeah yeah okay so that's one side of the micro example sure so in that particular project for those that weren't in the room then essentially what's happening so this film after the factory we did a screening one night at the main art theater in Moillo and took all the proceeds from that and used that money to build a remote control race car track on a vacant lot next to the Georgia street community garden that's grown by a family Mark Covento and the idea with this race track I mean I know itself it sounds kind of silly but the idea is that it gives kids and adults to it gives people a fun place to go with the idea that it's just fun in doing so in order to earn car time they will work alongside Mark in a variety of different ways so they can volunteer and help him with one of his reading nights or they can help with a movie night or they can help pick turnips one day or they can work in the media center and show other kids in the neighborhood this huge collection of books that exist that in my opinion go underutilized so we're in the very preliminary stages we've just been working most of the summer to clear off a lot because it was an old church part a lot that has since upped and gone so it's covered in debris and tires and all this stuff so we're really just cleaning it off and then at that point we're going to bring in a bunch of truffles and dirt and spread it out to sort of create a track and we're actually using wood and materials from other sort of decaying houses to build the deck that the children will stand on to race the cars and then we're going to try to take bathtubs and stuff and sink them into the ground with the cars to jump over so just things like this and all then this is probably going to cost us two to three thousand dollars that's not the counting for the time that it takes and we're really just moving around with dirt we're not talking about installing crazy circuit streets and things like this we're talking about moving around dirt and creating a functional space for people to exist in and then the longer term vision down the road and I see man in the eyes so maybe she can hear this and pass the word on as Wayne State the idea, the larger vision is that ideally kids, there will be maybe a handful of kids that are really interested in the cars themselves so we can bring these programs in to teach them things like basic circuitry and perhaps an engineering course that sort of relates to this thing so that it sort of opens their eyes to other possibilities and potentially work with local universities to try and bridge that gap so that perhaps we can offer some scholarships and things like that and again, we're starting with dirt we're talking about hands and dirt so very manageable stuff so that's Wayne State yeah if you could respond to what Bill said because there's another side of that so you might need to meet me next time so you can do that and I have a lot of questions because it has such a I've heard of a positive tone for you know what are the things that are worth looking at people and I really would like to know what you're doing Bill if I didn't talk important it is and we get to something that we're looking on on another side of that same conversation at Wayne State we've developed at Wayne State an organization called Arts for Detroit which is a pleasantly new kind of graduate organization that sends volunteers out into the community to work with neighborhood organizations or other organizations in arts related projects kind of taking additional volunteer hands to other student places where there are energy in the community which I think is an important thing to do that it has a sometimes overlooked event and that is particularly as we send students out into the community and sometimes the students not going to be great and not comfortable that they initially would be greater because in which they grow but they spend a semester there and they try to know people and no students are afraid of sort of imitating the Peace Corps the idea of sending people of talent and energy into situations of challenge and working there or just staying there with the people there who are also working on whatever the issues are and those people just like Peace Corps volunteers those student volunteers who come back come back different but that semester is not just an accumulation of knowledge outside their own imagination outside their own experience but it makes them different people it makes them lighter citizens so I think I'm just kind of speaking of this thing an issue that has wide implications it's not just the projects and I know there must be hundreds of local projects in this room and those by themselves but as people come in to help you all doing what you do you are changing down too it's not just the focus that you might have initially it's a radiation focus and of the students who have been working with arts for hopefully the last five years it's not lots of spaces if you're wondering but about 25% of them are still working where they were working when they started this project so it does speak to people wanting to change wanting to change to art is something besides art as a media so one of our success stories has been painting two people in Detroit and I think in Detroit it's both issue of supply and demand so we as Eastern market have joined a group called Detroit Community Markets and there is about 13 different food access programs whether it's smaller regular farmers markets whether it is a farm stand where you have a mobile farmers market you have food trucks you have CSA style box delivery programs and we have created a network and it's a really great thing to know that throughout the city of Detroit if you go to one you will find about other people who are working on the same problem as you and we share resources one of it is grants for foundations but also from other different sources like federal grants and so on and we try to redistribute it so that if some people need help with grassroots marketing campaigns that's where the money goes if some people need help with special events programming that's where the money goes for them so it doesn't seem like such a big accomplishment but two years ago some of these markets really worked collectively and just seeing how much work and effort went into we have the website we have ads to different radio stations we have flyers we have posters of people talking about it it's really exciting eat fresh thank you so I know that we're going to transition here but I just want to thank everybody tonight for participating in the conversation I know it's been really good and as I mentioned coming out of the presentations these are conversations that we don't typically have in the same space and I think the more that we can have them the more that we can kind of get on the same page and identify those successes and actually work collaboratively together so thank you very much thank you to all the panelists very exciting, thank you all that you have just shared so if you want to talk about it really quickly it's just important that the conversations that we have and the dialogue being next to another is always an important thing I'm reminded I was talking with this woman Shaye Hallow we did this she talked about going back to something that was earlier about the need to acknowledge that before we were here a lot of people were doing this work that allowed us to be here and naming that acknowledging that other people can sacrifice a lot is just an important thing so I just want to take this minute to acknowledge that we are here because a lot of people who came before us gave up a whole lot and did a whole lot so take them on come on so this is Elise's space that she's been very generous in working with us on over the past couple of days and she is part of the Eastern Market community and she's going to tell you some little bit about this and you have to know this woman who's been saving our apps right and left so I'm just right there really our family is all about using art as a tool for building communities and this space was my husband's nut manufacturing facility so right where the cash drive is there was a huge conveyor belt coming down where the nuts would as they were packaged would come and be shipped out of the roll-up door and for over a decade after we moved up the street we had a modern facility that would fall on one level we tried to lease the space out it was too big it was too overwhelming for people and then in our travels going to Fulton Street Market in Chicago and the Distillery District in Toronto and Chelsea in New York we just realized that Eastern Market could be the same thing art living with specialty food community and really almost overnight we popped up as in our gallery and it's been almost two years and it's been the most fulfilling experience in my life and I thank you for being here we rent the space out for special events every six weeks we usually have rotating art exhibits there's usually art all over the walls in here and it's just really a joy to have you all in this space using it and enjoying the market thank you the art that is here is of Detroit artists so she's extremely focused on who is the art and where are the artists in the community and featuring that work and I encourage you to talk to her about the history of the space and if you're an artist maybe talk to her so there are two people I left off my special thank you list earlier and I just have to give some serious props if they are still in the house those two women when I've said I need somebody for this or I need this they've just been so accessible and generous in offering time, energy and resources and I can't thank you enough for coming forward tonight and I appreciate all of you we're going to take a little we're going to take a 20 minute break there is going to be a ladies performance set that's going to be really fast


Today's guest created a platform that connects fashion and technology. Jordana Gimérez joins us to talk about co-founding fashion innovation, publishing her new book and her plans for the future. This is School of Hustle, the show where we find advice and inspiration from people who are making their own way. I'm Shannon, the VP of Social Hierarch Go Daddy, and I live and breathe the hustle of business. Today we're filming from the hustle of it all at the WeWork Times Square in New York City.  It's so fabulous to have you in School of Hustle. Thank you, it's such a pleasure and honor to be here. Well this year I went to fashion innovation at FIT in New York City because I love technology and I love clothes and I was so taken by what fashion innovation was all about and then I met you and I learned that you were the co-founder. I was blown away. I was there so I experienced it but those watching may not have been to fashion innovation before. Could you start by telling us what it is? What is it all about? Of course, so fashion innovation is a platform where we showcase innovations, viewways of technology that are shaping the fashion industry but not only shaping the fashion industry but also to make the world a better place. So we started putting together various thematics where we showcase these companies and brands where we talk about everything from sustainability to inclusivity to women empowerment but then we also go into entrepreneurship, manufacturing production, your textiles, so very wide array of topics and just recently because of seeing all of the trends that the industry is headed towards we slogan our company to be fashion is to love and so fashion innovation, fashion is to love showcasing technologies that are shaping the industry so that's really what it is in the next show. When I was there I was there supporting Emily Brackell of Chic Sketch who was a former school of hustle guest and she was moderating a panel where Hemp Black was on it and they were talking about how they are designing like an ink using hemp that somehow makes the production and the print better for the globe and that's like one topic is one example. I was just I was just so impressed I so much enjoyed what you are bringing together. The idea is so big and it makes so much sense and I certainly loved your event. I had a great time and I feel like I've made so many friends and connections from my network from it. So it's really overall a great thing. Now I understand that you co-founded fashion innovation with your husband how did the two of you concept the idea and bring it to life? So my husband has been in entrepreneurship and innovations via ways of technology scaling companies that are scaling internationalizing those companies and for the last his whole career basically as an entrepreneur and work sorry his whole career is like a workman and I've always been in fashion PR doing a lot of freelance marketing work for companies like Nina Ritchie, Porsche's Eye and Lawn Ball which kind of started my career and then doing it for the last 15 years and so when we got married in the last three years we had two babies we wanted to kind of put together what he does what I do and encompass it all into one amazing company and so we came up with Fashion Innovation which really is the perfect marriage between me and him and so it's really exciting to do it with him for sure. But how did you get people to to buy it right? So you had FIT it was a huge stage. What's interesting is that from day one we actually came up with the idea July of 2018 and our first event actually took place in September of 2018 so in only two months of coming up with the name the idea we were able to do an event with 39 speakers from like founder of Shopify directors of NASA but the interesting thing was that cold emailing a lot of these people within seconds we would get an email back saying yes I'm interested I'm in and we had no website nothing just the idea and the body of an email and people were really excited about it so I think because the world is kind of lacking you know connecting with people and storytelling and I feel like it's the trends that the industry is trying to go towards and they don't have a platform where they can talk about these things so I think that we kind of put like the boat I don't know if this makes sense but like the boat on the ocean at the right time is just kind of fighting us and it just happened so fast and just through putting an event together we realized because of the success of that that we didn't just have an event in our hands but rather a business and that's really how it came to fruition so it's really exciting and you have met so many fascinating people along the way who or what is your favorite story who's the most inspirational person that you've worked with through your business it's hard to say most inspirational because I think different people inspire you right different reasons I recently spoke two days ago to this girl in California she has a brand called Tom Fullery and she creates jumpsuits to wear to women when you go to the bathroom you don't have to take the full thing off you literally just unwrap the part to go to the toilet and it's made all the textile is just plastic bottles that's how the the jumpsuits are made and she just built the school in Kenya to help women in that region sew these jumpsuits so she I mean it's amazing and she's 28 or 27 years old something in that range so when you look at something like that you know it's like unbelievable well okay I'm blown away because she has clearly solved a problem that women have that that is a big pain in the neck so annoying to go to the bathroom and jump into the whole thing that's just a problem she solved but she went that extra step yeah to think about sustainability yeah yeah wages yep in Kenya yes she's doing a lot with that one story so exactly so when you meet someone like that I agree wow there's a lot going on do you you bring her into the fold so does she speak at fashion innovation yeah so we're gonna have her speak in February I just learned of her wow and I was so blown away that I was like oh my gosh I keep talking about her now because I think it's just she encompasses sustainability women empowerment technical innovation I mean in all in one brand so that's right it's amazing it is amazing yeah and you're at the centerpiece giving people and brands like this a platform yeah and that's what's exciting I speak to like 15 to 20 entrepreneurs every day now that are doing innovations in different kinds of way I mean every day I feel blessed because through having this platform I'm getting to meet all these amazing individuals and also one thing that I think is really cool is because we have you know the Google's and the Levi's and the Mara Hoffman's to be able to bring in these startups and put them on stage with these big companies yeah it gives them such an opportunity to create new collaborations and so there's like so many so many things that come of fashion innovation aside from us just being like a channel for fashion tech that I think it's really fun and so when you think about being that platform for everyone to join the stage and participate in what I think is is a movement really yeah right um as a business owner and an entrepreneur do you monetize that I'm very transparent yeah I think like as a startup we feel like you know losing out a little bit when it comes to monetary but we're gaming so much as far as knowledge and so I think like as it progresses we find there's a lot of things that are coming to us right now of people wanting different things within our space yeah and we're trying to figure out you know what what are the best models to really like monetize from right um and that's something that is an ongoing process yeah but I you know most for us like obviously any business you want to profit so you can live and all of that but at the same time I think you know for me creating social impact is so important also so it's nice to be able to find a happy medium between the two and I think we're on the way to doing that I think you are too um would you agree with me when I said that fashion innovation is a movement yeah yeah that's why fashion is to love is our new slogan yeah and what's been really fun with that is that fashion is something to everybody right right even if you think you're not a trendy sometimes you say oh you know I work in fashion people are like oh I have no like I don't know anything about fashion that's not true because everybody wakes up with a certain mood and you put something on that's going to make you feel that mood that you're waking up in right and so by you putting an outfit together even if to you that's not considered trendy or fashion it is right because what you wear is what persona finds you in that in a sense is fashion and so it's been really fun to like carry the slogan of fashion is to love around and ask people what is fashion to you and we've been getting those answers and viralizing that on social and it's become really like a movement and we're excited to just internationalize that and have people feel connected to something and so how would you answer that for me fashion so fashion is really feeling comfortable in your own skin fashion is understanding what your identity is and being proud of that through what you wear yeah I would say that that's yeah what fashion is to me I wanted to talk to you about a very exciting next endeavor for you which is your new book yeah oh my gosh it's called it can be you yeah um you know what is your book about and how did you come to publish it so the book is it's giving a face to homelessness using the voices of fashion influencers um through social media hashtag it can be you and now the book that I've put together and I just got a publishing deal recently so it's really really exciting um yeah I can't wait the day that I walk into a store and see my book I think I'm gonna faint so as you should that that's outrageous yeah so it's not self-published it was self-published and then it just got too hard and then I let like in the back burner and then I spoke at an event recently in Washington we seen somebody saw it they were a publisher they reached out to me and they're like we want to make this happen so now I'm in the stages of getting it published so give me an example of a scenario in the book so what I did is three years ago I was pregnant with my four years ago I should say I was pregnant with my first daughter and I really wanted to do something bigger and I feel like on social media you know you go on there and Kim Kardashian is eating a salad out of a plastic bowl everybody's like where did you buy the salad I want to eat it too and I feel that since they have that influence why not use it for the good so then I'm like I got ambassadors that are really big fashion influencers to share stories of struggles and how they overcame them and then I raised over $10,000 and go fund me and created a street team we gave out meals to the homeless and got their stories of how they want to fund a street so in the book you have side by side the story of the famous influencer of struggle and overcome and then you have the story of the homeless individual and it shows you very similar struggles but the circumstances separates the two hence it can be you and one thing that was really interesting is you know you have a lot of influencers that come to New York with a big dream of becoming an artist becoming a musician and they make it right even through struggles they end up making a name for themselves but then you have those that come and don't and because they're embarrassed or ashamed or their family kind of told them you know you're no longer like accepted here because you're doing something we don't approve of whatever the situation may be I've heard a few of those stories in the streets so like having that side-by-side comparison you know you think something as simple as not having like the family acceptance or not having the support system is something that can already separate the two individuals so I learned a lot with this project and I'm so excited thank you so much for opening up thank you so much the work that you're doing it's brilliant I appreciate it it's meaningful and impactful thank you I love what you're doing thank you so following that we are now going to transition to our favorite game called hustle time all right so team might I please have 60 seconds on the clock oh right would you rather visit liquorish castle or peppermint forest peppermint forest which hogwarts house would you be sorted into which what hogwarts harry potter oh i don't know harry potter okay camping or glamping glamping last person you texted my mom m&m's or skittles m&m ski trip or beach vacation beach vacation favorite part of your day waking up with my kids ideal fake sick day staying in watching this is us early burger night owl uh early bird fictional place you'd like to visit alice in wonderland go to karaoke song oh elena smory said anything elena's word that finish this sentence when i dance i look like a crazy person sound that is currently stuck in your head this moment if i could turn back time share i don't know why would you rather never be able to teach or never be able to learn never be able to teach favorite disney movie um frozen first app you open in the morning instagram all right nice that was like pressure nice see it was easy okay one two fifteen sixteen nice waking up with my kids and having that morning to just kind of unwind best piece of advice you've ever gotten you can learn anything from reading a book but passion is something that comes from within worst piece of advice it's impossible how do you use your career to inspire others through making sure that there's always some type of social impact or learn something that people can walk away with rather than just something that's in it for me ever felt like walking away no one thing you still need to learn i feel like sometimes i think i can do it all myself i need to learn to delegate what do you want people to learn from you that you should always be super genuine and honest and don't take that as a weakness but rather something that will bring people closer to you what's next for you creating an impact that's my dream who inspires you my mom who challenges you my husband well the last piece of advice is for the entrepreneur our favorite pug um so noodle and now i do you want jonathan to hold noodle or do you want hold good okay hi hi noodle are you so cute noodle tries to stay up to date on the latest trends but he finds that it's pretty hard to keep up as things are always changing what advice would you give an inspiring fashion enthusiast who wants to stay in the know about the latest trends in the space you see but i think a little differently so i don't think of what's trending to be like i don't feel like you have to wear exactly what's trending i feel like you can make your own trend based on what feels and looks best on you yeah so i think that doing that you're always going to be in trend i don't know if that makes sense but i think of it that way it does so you tap your inner sort of no preferences yeah your body type your style your mood exactly anywhere you yeah because not every trend is meant to fit everybody right we always like to end school of hustle with a final thought and so i'm going to share three quotes with you okay and ask if you would let me know which one resonates the most with you and why okay so number one if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough number two nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent number three i find that the harder i work the more luck i seem to have i'd say number two number two okay i think that everybody has something that they're really good at doing everybody has a gift yes and i feel like a lot of people because of fear never get never like move forward with what that gift is to really make that happen i feel like if everybody that had a gift i'm so sorry if everybody that had a gift um you know kind of like did their most to be able to get it out to the world and their successes i think that that would improve a lot of things you know in a lot of different industries that goes for just people in general but that really resonates with me because i think fear stops a lot of people yeah from being their best and there is so much talent out there too so much so much everybody has something to offer i am truly inspired by you i'm super inspired by your work too i think you're amazing and i love your energy thank you yeah i think what you're doing is incredible and i can't wait to attend your next fashion innovation i think it's in february right February 5th i really hope you come i would love to come yes so i'm officially invited we've all heard it i have an invitation and i will be there how can everyone follow fashion innovation so instagram is our biggest social platform so fashinnovation.nyc and then the website is fashinnovation.nyc so fashinnovation.nyc yes perfect yeah thank you so much you're so welcome follow fashion innovation across social follow go daddy across social too we're posting more fabulous entrepreneurs liked or down it every weekend go daddy social so follow us across the board follow fashion innovation and we'll see y'all soon thanks bye