Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead sits adjacent to the MOCAD, clearly visible from Woodward and Canfield.

The highly anticipated “Mobile Homestead” by artist Mike Kelley opened on Saturday, becoming the first permanent exhibit at the MOCAD (a Knight Arts grantee). The project was conceived in 2010, and executed as a scale replica of Kelley’s childhood home in the suburbs of the Detroit Metro area. The homestead includes a detachable façade room, which meets standards for a mobile vehicle and has made a few trips in and out of the city since its inception. For the time being, it remains settled with the rest of the installation, but there are tentative plans for it to break away and act as a mobile reading room in the future.

The silver seam running along the ceiling, walls, and floor is the division point for the facade to break away.

The opening included the Mobile Homestead Depot, where you participants were invited to select objects and then “make money” to pay for them.

Make money, get paid.

That’s just one of many potential community projects that are the ultimate purpose of the “Homestead.” It was proposed as a communal gathering space, with rooms for community group meetings, potential events and even band practice in the homestead’s garage. Anyone interested in using the space should contact coordinators at the MOCAD (there are several, but I spoke with Curator of Public Engagement, Jon Brumit: [email protected]).

Inside the MOCAD is a detailed exhibit on the making and history of the “Homestead” (as well as a sculpture installation by Graem White).

Several iterations of the homestead are on display, including this mobile-style replica that shows the sub-level, which was to be the artist’s studio space, prior to his death, and is now reserved for the private use of Kelley’s former bandmates.

The “Homestead” project fits in perfectly with the growing trend in Detroit art culture toward the creation of art that serves a functional purpose. Perhaps other cities can afford the luxury of art for art’s sake, but Detroiters have less resources to devote to sheer aesthetic value. The “Homestead” seems to stand as a symbol of everything people fled Detroit to find – the flat suburban ranch-style home, set against a manicured lawn and a flat blue sky/wall. But really, like everything bound to survive in Detroit, it will live through community engagement.

Welcome, Home.

MOCAD: 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-832-6622; www.mocadetroit.org