By Jennifer Conlin, Founder and Editor of CriticCar Detroit

Call it the Oscars of Detroit’s art world, but thanks to the Knight Foundation, individuals and organizations working hard to culturally revitalize the Motor City were recently acknowledged for the second year in a row at the Fillmore Theatre.

Last year, 56 winners were awarded $2.1 million through the Knight Arts Challenge in Detroit. This year, on October 6^th, a further 58 artists shared nearly $2.5 million in grants that will help Detroit become an even more vibrant place to live. Winning projects included creating a theater piece that will be performed in community gardens, enhancing an education center at the beloved African Bead Museum, and mounting a series of spectacles around the city by performance artist, Nick Cave.

Presided over by Dennis Scholl, Vice President of the Arts for the Knight Foundation, the evening was not just historic for Detroit, but lighthearted and personal. Scholl, wore many hats during the evening (including, as the MC, a Detroit emblazoned hip/hop hat and a cowboy hat from a Mexican dance troupe), he now truly knows many of the artists the Knight Foundation has supported. “It took me twenty minutes to learn how to say, “Kamishibai Man,” he said, joking with Andrew Krieger, the artist behind one of the winning projects. But the truth is, every artist now knows “Dennis” here in Detroit.

And thanks to him and Knight, as Tatiana Hernandez, program officer for the arts at the Knight Foundation said,  “I gotta tell you this city rocks!”

CriticCar Detroit, which was one of three finalists to win the NEA/Knight Foundation Community Arts Journalism Challenge in 2012, was there from the beginning to cover all the excitement–from a performance by Ballet Folklorico Moyocoyani Izel, which won the People’s Choice Award, to a performance by Detroit Drumline Academy.

Using an iPad, CriticCar transverses the city, recording short video reviews at cultural events with both the creators and participants, as a way of, “giving voice to creative Detroit.

The videos are then shared on CriticCar’s YouTube Channel, Facebook page and website, as well as with those who originally provided the content. The goal is to get more people engaged in all that Detroit has to offer culturally.

Now in its second year, I am proud to say– as the founder and editor of CriticCar– that with the help of Artrain, inc. (which produces the project) we have now captured nearly 800 interviews at more than 100 venues.

At the event, which was attended, as well, by many of last year’s winners, Katy Locker, Detroit’s Program Director for the Knight Foundation, said, “We are celebrating Detroit artists for their insane and wonderful projects.” Indeed, some of the winning projects like a bicycle mounted wooden theater and robotic shadow puppetry performance, couldn’t help but make the audience smile.

“I am so inspired by all the projects that are winning. I am asking myself if this is really happening?” said Ryan Meyers-Johnson, who won a grant to expand the Sidewalk Festival to new neighborhoods in the city. “2015 and 2016 Detroit is going to be crazy with art,” she said. “And it is really happening!”

Photo by T. Matthews/Michigan Daily