The third issue of Detroit Cultural features interviews with Olayami Dabls, the founder and curator of MBAD African Bead Museum, Christin Lee, the founder of Room Project, a workspace for women and non-binary artists and writers, Ellen Rutt, a multidisciplinary artist and the curator of Signs of the Times, and Dr. Maya Stovall, an anthropologist and conceptual artist from Detroit currently teaching at Cal Poly Pomona.
This issue explores ideas relating to the spaces that exist in contemporary life under late capitalism between self-expression and self-branding, and art and commerce. What does it mean in a post-Duchamp, post- relational aesthetics world when every object, moment, and action can be classified as art? And furthermore, what does it mean when every object, moment, and action can simultaneously be classified as a product of capitalism? What is the difference between an artist and a brand? How do these questions affect the way that cities and their economies are being reconfigured?
What are the ways in which public space is designed for certain demographics but not others? How can public space be re-imagined so as to be more inclusive and democratic?
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