The 2024 Eco-Artist-in-Residence at Eliza Howell Park, features Detroit-based artist, Halima Cassells. The residency starts on April 20 with a River clean-up event at Eliza Howell Park.
Throughout the residency, participants will join forces to rescue materials from the Rouge River, embarking on the start of turning trash into treasure for the newest upcycled art installation at the park. Cassells will then lead three workshops that allow individuals to contribute to the creation of the installation. The collected materials will be repurposed to construct an art installation at the trailhead leading to Rouge River. During those workshops, Ecology Center will also be providing insights into the impact of microplastics on the environment and the importance of sustainable practices for keeping our earth clean. This collaborative effort will result in an artwork that stands as an ode to our commitment to environmental stewardship in Eliza Howell Park and our climate crises.
Halima Afi Cassells (b. 1981) is an award-winning interdisciplinary community-engaged artist, mom of three, and avid gardener, with deep roots in Waawiiyaataanong/ Detroit, MI. She credits gardening as inspiring her to move away from painting to a practice where she aspires to use natural, found, and upcycled materials and processes that lend to the thriving of all (human and non-human) communities. Halima continues to explore relationship-building, and the notions of freedom and work, value and disposability in a participatory context through her work. In addition to winning the 2023 Kresge Award for Interdisciplinary Arts, Halima has been awarded grants from: Panta Rhea Foundation, BulkSpace, Art Matters, Culture Source, Knight Foundation Arts Challenge, and Artplace America. In addition to exhibiting at the Virgil Carr Center, Charles Wright Museum, MOCAD, and public spaces in Detroit, her work has also been featured in gallery spaces in New York, Oakland CA, Oaxaca, Berlin, Copenhagen, Bogota, and Harare.
For more information about the workshops and programs visit our events page here .
Visit Halima Cassells website: https://www.halimacassells.com/bio
Photo courtesy of Kresge Arts in Detroit
In 2021, Sidewalk Detroit hosted internationally acclaimed artist, Patrick Dougherty, as he created one of his famed ‘stickwork’ sculptures in Eliza Howell Park. This artist residency engaged over 150 artists, volunteers, neighbors, and members of the public to work side by side with the artist as he created this monumental piece. Each aspect of the sculpture is hand-woven and composed entirely of natural materials. This art installation is a multi-year effort, part of our long-term work in the park. The vision for the park is to improve infrastructure, specifically focusing on stormwater management and restoration of the native ecosystem, while curating activities that facilitate a deeper connection to the park.
Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Dougherty was raised in North Carolina. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina in 1967 and an M.A. in Hospital and Health Administration from the University of Iowa in 1969. Combining his carpentry skills with his love of nature, Patrick began to learn more about primitive techniques of building and to experiment with tree saplings as construction material. In 1982 his first work, Maple Body Wrap, was included in the North Carolina Biennial Artists’ Exhibition.
His work quickly evolved from single pieces on conventional pedestals to monumental scale environmental works, which required saplings by the truckloads. Over the last thirty-some years, he has built over 300 of these works, and become internationally acclaimed. His sculpture has been seen worldwide---from Scotland to Japan to Brussels, and all over the United States.
Visit Patrick Dougherty Website: http://www.stickwork.net/
Credit: Lunar Haus