Remediation Forest coming to East Canfield Art Park in Detroit

Over the next two years, the East Canfield Art Park will be transformed into an inner-city forest, equipped with air quality monitors all encapsulated by two architecturally constructed crowns honoring the founders of Canfield Consortium.

The sculpture installation, brought together through a collaboration of community groups, will be unveiled at a weekend kickoff event planned for May 18. Over the next two years, phase two will include the addition of a dedicated community gathering space and an elevated walkway to immerse patrons in the lush trees.

Executive Director of Sidewalk Detroit Ryan Myers Johnson said she was first introduced to grassroots community group Canfield Consortium at a land use conference focused on grassroots solutions to vacant land and green space in Detroit.

Myers Johnson said they conducted around eight community meetings to discuss the area's vision for a project focus and learned they wanted to work with a Black artist who could address the issues of air quality and environmental racism happening in the city.

"Some of the things that came up really early on were not without controversy," she said, "because when you're looking at a neighborhood that has quite a lot of needs and people who need wraparound services, what role does art play here?"

"(Our) meetings (have) definitely started to unpack trauma and get emotional ... but I think that's what it takes in order to get to something that actually is addressing a community need."

The park is less than five blocks from Stellantis' Mack Assembly Plant, which has been fined eight times for air quality violations since November 2021. In March, the plant agreed to pay an $84,000 fine issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy for exceeding the limit for volatile organic compounds at its Jefferson North Assembly Plant - also located in the East Canfield neighborhood.

Exposure to VOC vapors can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches and other side effects.

Myers Johnson said they collaborated with local nonprofit groups Ecology Center, Just Air, Detroit Tree Equity and Greening of Detroit to learn more about the issues of environmental racism the area is experiencing. The community unanimously agreed on New York-based sculptor and environmental racism activist Jordan Weber to construct the final piece at the Canfield Art Park located at 4405 Lemay Street.

Rewind: New art park opens on Detroit's east side in East Canfield Village neighborhood

Phase one of the project will feature air-purifying trees like pines and cypresses, air monitoring systems, and space for educational and community gatherings; encapsulated by Weber's sculpture titled “New Forest, Ancient Thrones.”

"The (sculpture) is a really great way to literally get closer to the heart and not think about a sculpture that's just built on top of the Earth, but it's really integrated into the fabric of what it means to live in this neighborhood," Myers Johnson said. "And because it's an active installation it's always telling you something (as) it's really focusing on the air quality monitoring."

The Hudon Weber Foundation Art Fund, Kresge Foundation and Erb Foundation, among other donations, fund the final project.

The entryway to the Detroit Remediation Forest will take the shape of crowns honoring African queens Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar, drawing comparisons to the dual-female leadership of Canfield Consortium co-founders Kim and Rhonda Theus.

A kickoff event on May 18 will showcase the final sculpture and include performances by local artists and the students from Barack Obama Leadership Academy, which directly faces the school. Over the past year, the students have learned how to read the air quality monitors installed at Canfield Art Park and understand how the data affects them.

Behind Canfield Consortium

Sisters Kim and Rhonda Theus are native Detroiters, who were drawn back to the city after their parents died in 2006 and they noticed a drastic change had taken place in their neighborhood.

"After our parents passed away we both were really saddened by the condition of the community," Rhonda Theus said. "So we talked to some people in city government to find out what the city plan for the neighborhood and much to surprise, there was no plan."

The sisters established Canfield Consortium in 2015 with a mission to return the neighborhood to the thriving area they remember from their childhood.

"We started to perform community development at the grassroots level, just talking, doing a lot of community engagement, talking to our friends and neighbors and what they want to see, and then going from there," Kim Theus said.

It wasn't long before community members started taking notice of higher asthma rates in the neighborhood's children and the Theuses began to take note of industrial trucks using residential roads.

"We have a neighbor that used to care for her grandchildren ... and two of her grandchildren have asthma," Rhonda Theus said. "Any time that they would come here and stay with her for — a few hours or more, they would have severe asthma attacks."

"We have community members who are having nosebleeds and different health issues that all started right after that plant went operational. So when people are telling us the emissions from the plant don't have anything to do with it, it's insulting."

Adults living in Detroit have a 46% higher prevalence of current asthma compared to the rest of the state.

More: Kids struggle to get effective asthma treatments in hotspots of Detroit, Wayne County

When they first learned Weber would take inspiration from their story in the final project, it left the pair speechless.

"It is such an honor to be viewed that way and see the impact of our work," Rhonda Theus said. "It's fulfilling to see that when people look at our work and look at what we do and how we move that it would equate us to these incredible African queens."

Kim Theus said art helps people digest complicated topics and looks forward to using the Remediation Forest to tell the story of East Canfield's environmental concerns.

"We are proud to be able to use art to open up dialogues and conversations about what's going on, not only here in Detroit, but in other communities in the United States that may not have political power," she said.

The final phase of the project, the addition of the elevated walkway and community meeting space, is expected to be completed by the spring of 2026.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Remediation Forest coming to East Canfield Art Park in Detroit