Neighborhood on the Edge
Presented by Shaun Nethercott
Neighborhood on the Edge is a sound and image installation featuring the voices and images of 10 Hubbard Richard residents reflecting a range of ethnicities, ages, and durations lived in the community. The installation involves 4x8’ portraits and other large-scale neighborhood landscapes by photographer Romain Blanquart, and a sound score edited from nearly 10 hours of residents’ testimonies installed at the Mexicantown Latino Cultural Center in the Hubbard Richard neighborhood.
Twenty years ago, the neighborhood was reduced to a few hundred residents after the Ambassador Bridge project demolished hundreds of houses. This small Southwest Detroit neighborhood of 1,200 people is in danger once more. The bridge recently received approval for its second span, and its owners have now petitioned the City of Detroit to close St. Anne Street, isolating its historic church—the second oldest parish in the United States—and sealing off access to several small streets. The international border with Canada is now the site of regular US Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and constant border patrols. Elders from the Rio Vista Detroit Co-op are afraid to walk the streets because of harassment. Neighbors welcomed the news that Ford Motor Company will redevelop Michigan Central Station at the northeast corner of the neighborhood, but the news is fueling rampant speculation. One 720 square foot house recently sold for over $200,000.
Neighborhood on the Edge allows viewers to see and hear the complexity of the community in this moment. It highlights the precarious situation of a small, vibrant neighborhood whose residents seem to have little control over their future.
Date: December 8–22, 2019
Partner: Mexicantown Latino Cultural Center
Location: 2835 Bagley St, Detroit, MI, 48216
Coordinates: 42.32418, -83.08166
About the Artist
Dr. Shaun S. Nethercott uses immersive or mobile staging, audience engagement, and polyphonic voices to explore feminist, environmental, and other social justice themes. She has dedicated her life to creating plays that give voice to the unheard through structures that transmit their own meaning, and which engage audiences in personal, interactive, and place-based ways. Over her 30-year career as an artist, arts administrator, and activist, she developed and produced 32 new plays, including mobile works Fear and Faith, Raven’s Seed, and Ghost Waters; site-specific works Once Was Paradise and Boomtown 1925; and immersive pieces ’37-’87, Trial, and Mother Tongue. Most of her performances have integrated wide-scale community engagement activities developed in partnership with non-arts community organizations. As the founder of Matrix Theatre Company in Detroit, she has received numerous awards and commendations, including the Governor’s Art Award, Mattin Arts Award for work with at-risk youth, and the Theresa Maxis Award for Social Justice.