Blueprint of Resonance: Building Detroit’s Artistic Future

Palais de Tokyo | Paris, France

A Blueprint of Resonance: Building Detroit's Artistic Future is a multimedia exhibition centered on a new generation of Detroit-based artists who are actively shaping the city's artistic landscape. These artists draw on—and expand—the legacy of working collaboratively and sustaining one another through both formal and informal means. The exhibition builds on Detroit's long-standing history of collaboration and community care within the arts. From early institutions like Pewabic Pottery (1903) and the Scarab Club (1907) to artist-run galleries and movements of the 1960s and 70s—such as Cass Corridor, Gallery 7, and the Artist Guild of Detroit—Detroit's art scene has always been built from the ground up, by artists and for artists.

What makes Detroit's art world unique is that its creative community is fundamentally rooted in relationships, resilience, and self-organization. Detroit artists build their own opportunities through formal collectives or informal friendship circles that function like extended creative families. Artists don't just coexist—they share studio spaces, lend supplies, co-host pop-ups in living rooms and warehouses, and offer feedback and encouragement without expecting anything in return. The art world in Detroit is deeply personal, remarkably adaptive, authentic, and community-driven. These conditions foster a culture where artists uplift one another rather than compete. That communal spirit isn't just background—it's the engine of the city's cultural production.

A Blueprint of Resonance offers a window into this evolving ecosystem. By highlighting artists who embody this legacy today, the exhibition demonstrates that collaboration and community care are not just tools for survival in Detroit—they are tools of transformation. In a city renowned for its resilience and self-determination, contemporary artists create innovative work by supporting one another emotionally, materially, and socially, redefining what the art world can be: one driven not by competition or scarcity, but by care, cooperation, and collective power.

New artist collectives prioritize inclusivity, experimentation, and access, developing networks that uplift artists across disciplines, races, genders, and experience levels. But collaboration in Detroit goes beyond organized efforts. Much of the city's art world operates through a quiet, persistent culture of care—artists checking in on one another, sharing jobs and opportunities, co-hosting exhibitions, lending tools, and offering emotional support. This informal infrastructure sustains artists through the challenges of working in an underfunded environment, reflecting a value system where the health of the creative community itself measures success.

At the heart of A Blueprint of Resonance is the recognition that in Detroit, collaboration, resource-sharing, and space-making are platforms for growth, experimentation, and visibility. The exhibition reveals that Detroit's artistic future lives in living rooms, backyards, group texts, and late-night conversations—spaces where artists continue to create culture by being in community with one another. By focusing on artists working today, the exhibition positions them as vital to Detroit's evolving identity—not simply preserving a legacy, but actively writing the next chapter.

Artists

Zahra Almajidi

Peter Bernal

Akea Brionne

Allana Clarke

Maya Davis

James Benjamin Franklin

Kylie Lockwood

Levon Kafafian

Lauren Kalman

Na Forest Lim

Tiff Massey

Mario Moore

Joey Quinones

Jamea Richmond-Edwards

Tylonn J. Sawyer

Graem Whyte

Andrew Wilson

lisa wuad