Detroit Riverfront Arts Festival
A free, neighborhood arts festival on the Detroit River with contemporary art installations and interactive events honoring the site’s history and facilitating community engagement for residents of all ages!
Leader
Jaime Lutzo
Location
14578 Riverside Blvd Detroit, MI 48215
About the project
Your donations to the Detroit Riverfront Arts Festival will facilitate cultural happenings in a fun and family-friendly environment for a community full of unique histories and inhabitants!
Throughout Riverfront-Lakewood East Park, aka Angel Park, artists will install or perform works that invite the audience to wander and discover the history of this sacred site and former swampland, now surrounded by man-made canals and the Detroit River.
Special events provide a time and a place for residents to engage in activities such as music listening picnics, guided walking meditations, talks on local history, and art workshops for kids with all materials provided.
The Steps
After funding is secured, the following steps will be taken:
1. Apply for park permit and festival insurance. (April 1, 2020)
2. Reach out to artists, musicians, historians, mediation leaders, etc. to start narrowing down participants. (April 1, 2020)
3. Compile special events calendar and deliver project budget payment to artists so they may begin work. (May 1, 2020)
4. Finalize special events programming. (June 1, 2020)
5. Finalize descriptions of installed art works or interactive events with artists. (June 30, 2020)
6. Press release including festival schedule and participating artists and what they're presenting. (July 6, 2020)
7. Reserve port-a-john and generator. (July 7, 2020)
8. Print posters and flyers for local distribution. Order banner to be installed at park entrance and signs to be placed around the neighborhood. (July 8, 2020)
9. Distribute posters and flyers. (July 10-18, 2020)
10. Promote on social media. (July 10-August 30, 2020)
Why we‘re doing it
Angel Park has long been an underutilized public park. On any given day in the summer one might run into a half dozen people fishing on the river or smoking weed in their cars, and in the past more illicit activities took place there. The park is built on sacred land, a site where over 1,000 Fox Natives were killed fleeing from the Huron, Ottawa, and Potawatomi tribes, Native allies of the French. Believing that art has the ability to generate creative and critical thought, as well as to heal, the festival aims to get neighbors out of their homes and into the park, to engage with one another and honor the water and the land that we are so fortunate to be surrounded by.