53
Backers
$11,000
pledged of $11,000 goal
0
seconds to go
Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on December 16, 2009.
Pledge $5 or more
Receive access to our blog, www.icehousedetroit.blogspot.com, which will include quicktime movies, outtake photos, production stills, and production information from this project.
Pledge $20 or more
You will receive a 4 X 6 postcard of the finished artwork, in addition to the above.
Pledge $40 or more
You will receive an 8 X 10 Digital C Print of the finished artwork, in addition to the above.
Pledge $60 or more
You will receive two unique 8 X 10 Digital C Prints of the finished artwork in addition to the post card.
Pledge $80 or more
You will receive a 13 X 17 Digital C Print of the finished artwork signed by the artists, in addition to the above.
Pledge $100 or more
You will receive two unique 13 X 17 Digital C Prints of the finished artwork in addition to the post card.
Pledge $125 or more
Receive a signed and numbered copy of the Ice House Detroit photo book, in a limited edition of 50. Photographed by Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune.
Pledge $400 or more
A 3-4 hr. urban tour of abandoned, historical, and unusual Detroit sites by acclaimed and extensive published urban explorer and installation artist Scott Hocking. This man is renowned worldwide as the preeminent expert on a city with extensive architectural and industrial treasures. This is a rare opportunity - not to be missed! Tours limited to (3) groups of (3), so feel free to economize and split the total price. Visit http://icehousedetroit.blogspot.com/ for more info on Scott Hocking and The Detroit Urban Tour options.
Pledge $500 or more
You and a guest receive a group Urban tour of the most iconic abandoned building in Detroit, the Michigan Central Depot Train Station, by someone legally allowed to access the site. This reward will also include accommodations at a hotel in Detroit for 2 nights, and one dinner at the amazing Slows BBQ, within a few hundred feet of the tour location. The train station was designed in 1913 by the same architects responsible for Grand Central Station in New York. At the time of construction it was the tallest train station in the world. However, In recent months the city has threatened to tear down this architectural wonder. At present the site is still threatened with demolition, and is completely off limits to the general public. Take advantage of this rare opportunity before this architectural wonder is gone forever. Visit our blog for more info on the Central Depot train station, Slows BBQ, and Detroit history.
Project By
Connected
Gregory Holm has for many years been involved in photographic, musical, and public installation work in the city of Detroit.
His Studies and correspondence with Hans Jenning, Scott Makela, and Lamonte Young have led to an array of experimental films, musical installations, and large scale instrument building.
Currently working as an architectural photographer in NY, he is again returning to his native Detroit for this current installation project.
Matthew Radune is an architect, designer, and DJ living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He has been involved in green design on multiple scales: working on disparate projects such as felt based home lighting, green prefab architecture prototypes, and urban planning in Dubai. In the last few years of DJing, he has played records at MOMA, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Art and Design, as well as setting up his own DIY rooftop parties in Brooklyn.
here is update for the Ice house:
http://www.youtube.com/watch...
how beautiful!! i love your project, saw the photos on your blog, look forward to finding out more!
also i am moved by the comment below, i hope the ice house helps to bring attention and benefits for the people living in the neighborhood.
This guy has been spending the night on My block for 2 weeks now .Someone ask him how many gunshot have he heard".Zero "How many high speed chases he has seen"Zero". ask him have anybody try to rob him. I live in a peaceful ,yes forgotten neighborhood.Defiantly culturally different.
I live in, what is consdier to be ground ZERO.
At first I have mix feeling about this project on my block.
1.The house is pretty Cool I like it.
2. Why did he pick my block when I can got to East pointe or Warren and show Blocks and blocks of empty homes.
The problem is you get the haves who move out ,and burn down the houses for insurance Money ,or they walk away from mortgages then move to the Suburbs and leave the homes to the squatters and drug dealers.Who then uses space heaters or some other means of unsafe way of heating the house up.
My family was the first black family to move on McClellan and I watch every House fire and vacant house appear,My generation is trying with what we got.The generation before mine let this happen.Im 30 years Old I make a Middle class salary and raising 5 kids I cut my grass I"ve planted 3 new trees fixing up my house slowly but surely etc.
To fix my block starts with me first,not somebody making a Ice house for outsiders who really at the end of the day don"t really care.
I would love to have cops,firefighters and whites as my neighbors. My best friend at work is white and he comes over all the time .Until people move back and restart the economics of the neighborhood and rebuild the tax base better schools etc.
Keep doing your project ,great Art ,I feel honor you pick my block .
Just hope some of the many visitors ,see some of the vacant lots and houses and buy them and fix them up ,Please.
Peace and Love
i really wish people had something better to do with their time than use their small scope mentalities to put down such a great project. If you look at the broader picture here (which you may need to get off your high horses to do) you'd realize that the press generated by just the proposed project alone is doing much more to raise awareness and can therefore ultimately go much farther than an $11,00 donation to foreclosed families could. As the project gains momentum, the potential for change and support only increases. Why people feel the need to pick apart an attempt to highlight a serious problem and make a statement in such a beautiful way only suggests that the creativity and thought behind it are tapping into some latent insecurities and feelings of creative inadequacy.
To condemn someone for waiting until now, asking "where the hell have you been all this time?", not only weakens your own argument (if the project is a misdirected use of funds and a vulturous artist's vanity project why imply that it could be a positive tool for change in complaining about it's absence?) but is exactly the kind of wasted energy that slows down change. To bemoan an attempt to draw attention to and benefit people in a dire situation does nothing in itself to help, it only casts negative energy on a positive effort for change. Maybe rather than belittle others' aspirations you should try channeling all of that energy in a positive direction. Basically, stop bitching and start helping before being so quick to put others down. Also, regarding this sentiment that restoring Detroit will only bring about racism and is futile since it was a polluted cog in the capitalist machine... what the hell else do you suggest doing in the face of it's course towards the point of no return?
I find the below comments to be unfair. The $11,000 is to allow them to begin their project, which will contain many charitable aspects (see http://icehousedetroit.blogspot.com/), including recycling the materials from the house, donating the lot to a group that creates a "greener" Detroit, and attempting to raise money to donate to the local community. In addition, this project has brought both local and national attention to Detroit and raised awareness of the problems occurring here.
I also appreciate that the artists are bringing a work of art to the city of Detroit. I think it is one of the triumphs of humanity that even in times of despair people create beauty. They are contributing something positive to Detroit, which as anyone who lives here knows can use all the positives it can get, and I find it a shame that this is not recognized or appreciated.
For those of you below that continue to find this project uncharitable, why don't you start a fundraising project yourselves instead of criticizing other people's endeavors?
With respect to the below implication that resurrecting Detroit means resurrecting racism, I find these statements to miss the point. At one point in time, Detroit had a successful economy, a beautiful vibrant downtown, and a national reputation as the Paris of the Midwest. While Detroit also had issues with racism (issues that to some extent remain today), I find it specious to argue that revitalization of the city will propogate racism. What would you have happen to the city? Would you prefer to see it continue to fall into urban decay? Detroit has the country's best collection of pre-depression architecture, but this architecture is not being preserved. The city is crumbling. At this point in time, rather than allocating blame for Detroit's current situation, I believe everyone, city and suburbs alike, needs to look towards the future and work towards rebuilding Detroit. Perhaps the ice house will not heal the past or solve the city's current problems, but at least it is an attempt to make the city a better place.
Hello,
I just read somewhere you weren't sure how to freeze a house? Do it the Detroit way - on Belle Isle, they used to have an "ice fountain" they created by piling up a bunch of trees, and then they had a pipe that dripped water onto it, and that's how it froze, drip by drip by drip...I guess you could have 4 or 5 dripping pipes...of course, they would be really TALL freestanding pipes, that dripped OVER the roof, in various spots...
....I do mention that I have written a novel centered on Detroit, about a female Santa Claus, with her very own ice palace...Sonya Chloe Lives at the North Palace...palace, not house...the website is http://www.sonyachloe.info if anyone wants to check it out...
...I think the comment re: why not use the money to help people who are foreclosed, is a pertinent one...I mean, how many thousands of people showed up at Cobo Hall recently, for help with their utility bills / foreclosures etc? And how few got helped...and how many got turned away? Most people (to my understanding) left Cobo Hall that day in the same nightmare situation they were already in.
What I'd like to see is - just freeze part of the house - and then use the rest of the money to help people with their goddangitall EXPLODING FURNACES THAT KILL PEOPLE IN THE WINTER IN DETROIT!!!!!! AND ALSO SPACE HEATERS THAT KILL PEOPLE IN THE WINTER IN DETROIT!!!!!!!!
There's something very weird about this project - not the frozen house, which I have no problem with - but it has a little bit of an artist-as-vulture feel to it...oh, now that Detroit is SO BAD, NOW YOU'RE INTERESTED...where the hell have you been all this time? I think that is the feeling....
Disclosure: I live in the suburbs, so maybe that discounts everything I have to say...but still....
Re: "...what a great city Detroit once was. The city of Detroit has a very significant role is the history of a United States. Wouldn't it be a shame if we were not able to resurrect this..."
Um, let's think about that...how about: "what a RACIST city Detroit once was. What a POLLUTED city Detroit once was. Detroit has a very significant role in the history of capitalism, and how capitalism destroys so much, in its endless hunger for profit / dividends, and continues to destroy so much, GLOBALLY now. It only took 100 years for Detroit to turn into what it has today...what a cautionary tale for the Chinese, and their "modern" "high-tech" city of Cheng Du & other manufacturing centers...it only took us a HUNDRED YEARS to get where we are today in SE Michigan. How long will it take in China...more than 100 years...or less? Emerging Chinese middle class, don't get too excited about your WalMarts and your Buicks...LOOK AT DETROIT...
And as far as "resurrecting" anything - PUL-LEEZ...let's see - 1863 race riot, 1943 race riot, and 67 riots. The "lay of the land" in SE Michigan has been shaped so much by racism, white racism...it's one of the biggest obstacles to regionalism, I feel...I don't think "Detroit" is just the area within the official city limits, I think you can't understand what Detroit is, if you don't broaden your scope...why not have an ice house out in the suburbs? It's where all the cold-hearted people, who don't care about Detroit, live...(not that EVERYONE in the suburbs doesn't care...but PLENTY DON'T).
Also, my dad's house (where he was born) in the St. Cyril area, is now a vacant lot. I'm glad that someone cares enough to mow the lawn of that vacant lot...but all the bars on people's windows...why not make an ice prison? Or an itty-bitty frozen gun...that should only cost about 20 bucks to freeze...
Signing off....and pissed off...
A Metro Detroiter
Hillary,
Let's try and channel our frustration with the current situation into helping one another!
I'm going to have to disagree with the last statement. The reason I say this is because: Detroit has been on the brink of financial disaster for a long time. It is time to make a stand and revive what was one a thriving industrial city. Sometimes the best way to do this is through Art. Art will give people an appreciation and realization of what a great city Detroit once was. The city of Detroit has a very significant role is the history of a United States. Wouldn't it be a shame if we were not able to resurrect this? Therefore, I propose a very reasonable and simple solution:
Once the Ice House Detroit and has been constructed, you charge a small fee for people to visit and get a guided tour. It would be for a great cause and all the money would be donated to help people in foreclosure and we could give to the local food banks.
The Ice House may not be a huge attraction but it could be simple entertainment that people would visit because all proceeds would go to charity. This is a great way to make a wonderful piece of iconic art and help the community.
$11,000 is quite a bit of money... if you're making a statement why don't you use the $11,000 to help families who are facing foreclosure. That's really the only way to help the situation. Covering a house with ice as a "statement" is a gross waste of money, and really doesn't show anything, except that all the backers of this project have no idea what it's like to be foreclosed. So far 13 people have pledged $1,450... which could potentially help two families save their houses.
This country is drowning because the rich are backing stupid projects like this, and not helping the poor, who are only getting poorer in this economy.