Lush, Moving Video about Recovering Detroit from Blight

Volunteer Portraits, Jeff from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

A video portrait of Detroit social activist Jeff DeBruyn by Stephen McGee.

Detroit photographer and cinematographer, Stephen McGee has just released a new series of videos produced for the The Imagination Station in Detroit. The videos lushly capture the emotion and effort going into trying to remove the blight from Detroit and replace it with art and creative redevelopment.

Here's an excerpt of the Imagination Station's vision:

Imagination Station of Roosevelt Park is a nonprofit whose first job is to clean up 2236 and 2230 14th street, two blighted structures on the park facing the epic ruins of Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The house on the right will be renovated using sustainable green practices. The burned out shell of the house on the left will be disposed of and its boundaries used as a public art space. Through this process, the Imagination Station aims to create a replicable model of redevelopment fueled by traditional partnerships and grant practices, as well as new social media techniques for fundraising, storytelling, and volunteerism

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There's also an excellent portrait of Jerry Paffendorf, who's Loveland project has launched the idea for The Imagination Station.

Wack Dem Weeds from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

[The Imagination Station]

[Detroit: Shrink a City with Wild Imagination]

Loveland "Makes" The New York Times

Jerry Paffendorf, Mary Lorene Carter and Alan Languirand of the Loveland Team at the site of Plymouth. (Image credit: The New York Times)

The New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik went to Detroit this week to cover Maker Faire and ended up doing a profile about how artists are surviving and thriving in the shrinking city of Detroit. Rita J. King wrote her own take on the transformation of Detroit in her essay last week, "Detroit: Shrinking City with Wild Imagination."

Wringing Art Out of the Rubble in Detroit profiles a number of artists including our own Jerry Paffendorf's Loveland Project:

Jerry Paffendorf, a newly arrived resident who quickly built himself a niche. Mr. Paffendorf, 28, moved to Detroit from San Francisco by way of Brooklyn last spring, with an expertise in software design and a side of techno-savvy wit. He is behind a project called Loveland, a “micro real estate” enterprise that sells parcels of Detroit that he owns by the square inch for $1 a piece. Mr. Paffendorf bought 3,150 square feet of land for $500 when he arrived; “inchvestors” get a plot in a part of town that might not be well trod otherwise. Proceeds go to organizations that address Detroit’s many problems.

Congratulations Jerry!

[NYT: Wringing Art Out of the Rubble in Detroit]