The Heidelberg Project

The Heidelberg Project is a colourful postmodern work of art and community project located on Heidelberg Street in Detroit, Mighigan created by artist Tyree Guyton. Guyton lived through the 1968 Detroit race riots and witnessed the breakdown of his neighbourhood. He started the project in 1986, and with the help of others has transformed the houses and trees of the street into works of art.

Since 1991, the city of Detroit has been fighting to tear down the project, and has bulldozed a number of houses several times. But the project continues, largely because of donations and support of many people. Visitors have come from all over the world to see the project. Tyree has received two awards for his art, the Spirit of Detroit Award in 1989, as well as the Michigan Governor's Arts Award in 1992.

Tyree plans to expand the project into a creative art center for children, community garden, amphitheater, and beyond. The project is definitely one of the most inspirational sights in a city which has otherwise remained largely in ruin for the past 30 years. In a recent court battle, the non-profit organization lost against the city by a jury in which 5 of the 6 jury members were not residents of the city of Detroit itself.

More info can be found at www.heidelberg.org.

Heidelberg is a street in Detroit which was once inhabited by a troupe of artists (around the late 80s). The artists cleaned up the neighborhood to an extent, and then began to turn it into their own work of art. They set up old pairs of shoes around broken down washing machines and painted polka dots on the sidewalk. They hung dolls from the branches of trees and painted houses pink, blue, red, and orange. They arranged abandoned appliances and random garbage into spectacles that people would drive from the suburbs to see. The effect was eerie, this flurry of multicolored activity in the middle of the ghetto.

The Detroit mayor at the time, Coleman A. Young, was not terribly impressed with the project, but let it survive since it had so much support from the local artists, yuppies, and independent newspapers. There were arguments over whether the Heideleurg project was an eyesore or a work of art. Some time after Mayor Young died (mid 90s), the project was almost completely dismantled, and Heidelberg street is once again just an unremarkable part of the Detroit ghetto.