By Kelli Kavanaugh, MOCAD

As our exciting winter season progresses, MOCAD looks ahead to summer with a Call for Submissions for Post Industrial Complex, an in-depth survey of contemporary small-scale fabrication and creative service development within the city of Detroit, celebrating the vitality and necessity of the art and industry of the everyday. From the utterly banal to the opulent –the paperclip to the chandelier – each component of the exhibition contributes to the polyphony of Detroit. The exhibition serves as both still life and group portrait of our fair city.

Often defined and mythologized by its production, failures or possibilities, rarely is Detroit catalogued and surveyed free of easy characterizations or the contagion of hope. This exhibition is about Detroiters and the stuff they make, and not about today’s hot topics: the auto industry, urban farming or economic recession.

The multi-disciplinary exhibition is comprised of locally made objects and video interviews with makers and inventors. Programming will include live conversations with community members in a living room-type environment within the exhibition, tours of the exhibition by a variety of local innovators, makers, and labor historians.

Post Industrial Complex is a celebration of local innovators and their wares. The exhibition will include a catalog including everything surveyed during the research phase of the exhibition, from which the exhibition is produced, as well as narrative texts and critical essays by local and national writers.

The exhibition contributes to the current conversation about the role contemporary institutions play within their communities. Here the museum culls the craft and intellect from surrounding neighborhoods to create an exhibition that is uniquely engaged in its surroundings.

Creative production is not the sole domain of artists. Nor should it be limited in such a way, but rather considered a vital component of all design and production across disciplines and the backbone of innovation. It could be argued that anyone in the city of Detroit is an artist, solving problems creatively and often collaboratively in response to or regardless of the city’s health. Through the exhibition’s de-contextualization of objects and narratives, perspectives are re-oriented and the spotlight cast upon makers, stories and solutions.

In light of the persistent global economic crisis and big media’s insensitivity to nuance, the exhibition foregrounds the value of labor and small-scale innovation oftentimes overlooked in the rush of late Capitalism. The exhibition interrogates the roles and responsibilities of institutions and citizens to their communities, and proposes new possibilities for communicating, organizing and valuing labor. Post Industrial Complex is about the rich narratives that surround labor, be they the practice of art, the production of zippers or the editing of instructional videos.

Swing by the Museum to pick up a submission postcard! This is a great opportunity to document — and possibly exhibit — your work at MOCAD!