Time has come today: New sundial piece debuts at Heidelberg Project
Dec. 21, Noon-6 p.m.
The best thing about Detroit’s Heidelberg Project is its unwillingness to remain static and rest on its laurels as one of the great art installations of our times. And we mean here, there and everywhere to quote Sir Paul McCartney, not just on Detroit’s old East Side.
The latest edition to the growing piece is the Heidelberg Sundial, to be unveiled on Monday, Dec. 21, at the corner of Heidelberg and Mt Elliott. There will be refreshments and snacks, with a holiday tree to decorated Heidelberg style. That has to be good. The daylong opening event starts at noon and runs until 6 p.m.
The Heidelberg Project was created in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey (“Grandpa Sam”) as an outdoor art environment in Detroit’s McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on the city’s east side, just north of the city’s historically African-American Black Bottom area.
At first, the project consisted of his painting a series of houses on Detroit’s Heidelberg Street with bright dots of many colors, and attaching salvaged items to the houses. It was a constantly evolving work that transformed a hard-core inner-city neighborhood. He and director Jenenne Whitfield give lectures and workshops on it around the country. Their main goal is to develop The Heidelberg Project into the city’s first indoor and outdoor museum, complete with an artists’ colony, creative art center, community garden, amphitheater, and more.
The Heidelberg Project attracts nearly 275,000 visitors a year, and is a destination for visitors from across the world.
