FOREWARD Trying to understand culture is intimidating, period. Trying to understand culture, today, in this country, can be downright scary. We can t explain it all, but we can tell the stories of what s happening out there. Landings is a cross-section of one city s cultural story. It s a look at what interesting things are happening that we may not know much about, but can gain something from. Detroit was our third city. It was the smallest city we visited with the biggest stories to tell. Stories of what the future of porn may look like, what black-muslim body-positive fashion-bloggers are up to, how milk and weed mix, and a glimpse into what and where the next cultural revolution may be. This is our landing in Detroit.
DETROIT: AMERICA S CREATIVE INCUBATOR? Drinking whole milk out of a badly chipped coffee mug and passing a two-day-old joint back and forth, writer and rapper Doc Waffles gestured with a circular motion around the porch of the North Detroit row house we sat on. All this, around me, right now. This is what makes Detroit special. I m only working part-time but I split a 3-bedroom house with 1 other person. I wake up, I smoke, I think and I write. I can t do that in New York. It s impossible. I can only do this here. Michael Stone-Richards, Professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, put it in different words. The artist has an extraordinary luxury of free time the time to think the time to be outside need and anxiety. The ability to not have to worry about money, rent and outside pressures and just focus on one s craft and create cool stuff more easily is something you won t find in many cities in the US. But it s not just time and money. Physical space is another unique asset of Detroit. With nearly 70,000 abandoned buildings, 31,000 empty houses and 90,000 empty lots, space is cheap and plentiful. The ability to wander, explore and even utilize the open and abandoned spaces is something very few other cities can offer. Combine this with a greatly over-stretched police force and the lack of regulation and enforcement, and a culture of experimentation unlike anywhere else in the country is the result. A culture where the creative wild things roam. And a culture creative minds and creative brands from outside the city could learn a lot from.
CREATIVELY FAILING FORWARD An establishment orthodoxy for things like art, fashion or food that one would find in LA or New York is completely absent in Detroit. This is a double-edged sword, as it can mean fewer opportunities to be mentored or hone your chops from somebody who s made it, but it also creates a culture without fear of judgment and less stereotypical work. And with less formal stages and crowds that tend to be more encouraging and collaborative, the price of experimentation is much lower. There s little downside to a failed artistic endeavor. It s basically the Wild West for artists, void of any sense of a parental-like hierarchy. And it s causing creative minds from more traditionally renowned and traditionally structured art capitals to flock to Detroit. It s why people like Paulina Petkoski left the New York fashion houses she had worked at 5 years ago to come back home and start Playground Detroit. Petkoski had been classically trained in fine arts and fashion and saw the raw talent in Detroit not being cultivated properly. At Playground Detroit she s currently acting as agent, curator and promoter of basically all interesting creative endeavors happening in the city. Her focus is on honing the skills of all types of artists and giving them a stage and outlet to show their work. The goal seems less about directing creative expression and more about encouraging an attitude of creatively failing forward. Whether you re after a lack of structure or seek to implement it, it s easy to look at this positive creative attitude as fueling the next Beat Generation or Hippie movement in the making.
THE CURIOUS DEPTHS OF SEXUAL DESIRE What do you do after you ve spent the majority of your adult life studying psychology and sexuality, even writing a thesis for your doctoral program that looks like a search query on xvideos.com? Well, you dive into the world of private-user, micro-genre porn content creation. Obviously. So what the hell does that mean? Janey Jones (real name withheld) calmly explained that, porn aside, it s just another example of co-creation with consumers. People are into really specific things these days. They know exactly what they want. And believe it or not, there are things in the porn world you can t find, even with all the content out there. So Jones helps clients develop the narrative behind their desire, creates a story, produces it and sells the content directly to a client. The end product could be 30 seconds or 30 minutes and plots are often complex and involve a mix of sexual and non-sexual content. We all have a lot of shit pent-up in our heads and hearts. Before, people never had anyone to talk to about these topics, let alone help them embrace, process and generate something out of it. It s a unique sex-therapy-meets-psychology niche Jones is focusing on. Genres and desires range wildly many of which she refuses to partner on--but what s clear is that the next chapter of porn may not be dictated by the industry, but rather its viewers.
THE /NEW /SLASH Detroiters may be leading the charge in this country of what it means to be multifaceted today. Never has such a high proportion of the population done so many different things at the same time. Leah Vernon battled fat-shaming, racial and religious antagonism, mental illness and an oppressive marriage for nearly a decade before she reinvented herself by becoming a voice for all these areas of tension. There is no other fat, black-muslim fashion blogger that can talk about lip-liners, hijabs and hip-hop. She self-identifies as being feminist / Muslim / Body Positivity Activist / Plus-Size Model, and each facet of her identity allows her to do something different. She now blogs about things like culture, identity and fashion as well as collaborating with brands as an influencer. Similarly, when we asked Sheefy McFly, born Tashif Turner, how he d classify himself as an artist, he simply responded with I don t even know where to start. He started in rap, dabbles in electronic, DJ ing every week, plays in a punk rock band, designs the clothing he wears, recently drew a large commissioned mural at the city s famed Eastern Market and was finishing up a freelance project designing logos as we conducted his interview. The resistance to traditional labels, paths and singular styles is a tradition to Detroit where the likes of Jack White and Danny Brown taught people to never box themselves in. This cultural and subcultural fluency and fluidity defines today s renaissance men and women, and Detroit is truly a breeding ground for this archetype.
ALL THAT RISES FROM THE ASHES Detroit s physicalities its sprawling layout, its massively wide boulevards you don t see elsewhere anymore, its Guardian and Fisher buildings (both built in 1928), its St. Mary s Church (built in 1868) and, of course, its current post-apocalyptic feel with blocks of abandoned buildings, ruins of razed projects and waist-high grass in the middle of the city-- beg of us to think of Detroit s past or its future. What once was, and what will be. And it s near impossible to not write about that. But true Detroiters prefer to talk about the magic in the air today. So we have. It s true something special has been brewing since the city s financial and physical implosion last decade. It s as if Detroiters took the city s 200 year-old motto We hope for better things; it will arise from ashes and decided it s too passive. They ve decided that rising from ashes doesn t just happen. It s created. The energy today is undeniable, helping the city become the symbol for the country s endurance and fighting spirit. People tend to fight harder here. And while more and more people from Detroit are using the energy as a springboard for new companies (aka Detroit Strong), there s a wide-open opportunity for brands from outside the city and state to become part of the movement, using the city s physical and creative capital, as well as its unique brand of fight. Better things are happening today, indeed.