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Heidelberg Project

Detroit, United States of America

Heidelberg Project

The Heidelberg Project is an outdoor art project in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on Detroit's east side, just north of the city's historically African-American Black Bottom area. It was created in 1986 by the artist Tyree Guyton, who was assisted by his wife, Karen, and grandfather Sam Mackey ("G

randpa Sam"). The Heidelberg Project is in part a political protest, as Tyree Guyton's childhood neighborhood began to deteriorate after the 1967 riots. Guyton described coming back to Heidelberg Street after serving in the Army; he was astonished to see that the surrounding neighborhood looked as if "a bomb went off". At first, the project consisted of him 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 an inner-city neighborhood where people were afraid to walk, even in daytime, into one in which neighbors took pride and where visitors were many and welcomed. Despite the area being characterized by high levels of blight and poverty, the evolving art work grew, Tyree Guyton worked on the Heidelberg Project daily with the children on the block. He and...

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