Wayne State University’s Elaine L. Jacob Gallery will present the exhibition Shrinking Cities ?: Wayne State University Responds from January 26 through March 16, 2007. Featuring new collaborative works by faculty and graduate students, the WSU show is a response to the internationally touring exhibition similarly titled Shrinking Cities to be featured concurrently at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit (MOCAD) and Cranbrook Art Museum.

Re-examining the premise of the touring Shrinking Cities exhibition at MOCAD and Cranbrook, the WSU show centers on humanistic and positive aspects of urban Detroit. Through aesthetically and conceptually strong art, Shrinking Cities ?: Wayne State University Responds advocates social, political and economic realities that are optimistic and centered on individual experience. WSU exhibition organizers, WSU Professors Evan Larson, Pam DeLaura and Adrian Hatfield have selected works that emphasize the human side of the urban experience by sharing affirming stories of Detroit and its remarkable people.

The exhibition features individual and collaborative installation projects that invite viewer interaction. Works include the Detroit Windsor Journal Project by Ben Good and Alana Bartol; a multi-level project by Ericia Bartels-Dawkins entitled The Motor City Rosary; Stephen William Schudlich’s Urban Village; Corktown Summer 2006 a series by Bernard Brooks; the Composite Urban Dwellings (Triptych) by Kristen Gallerneaux; and A Personal Family Lineage: Memory-Mapping by Emily Linn; and the collaborative Catherine Ferguson Academy Project organized by Pam DeLaura and JenClare Gawaran.

“Viewers will be invited to participate, either through using their bodies to navigate a forest of journal entries or to move objects to create an idealized urban environment,” explains exhibition co-organizer DeLaura, “or simply by viewing and feeling reverence for the ideas and hopes expressed in the complex multi-layered art inspired by students from the Catherine Ferguson Academy”.

“Detroit is a living city with an ongoing story of fortitude and ingenious problem solving” adds Larson. “Shrinking Cities ?: Wayne State University Responds will offer a small sampling of the many people, places and ideas in play, and it will provide a catalyst for conversation and new thinking on the issues facing the city of Detroit. Through the projects in this exhibition we hope to involve the public and collaboratively illuminate a pathway to Detroit’s future. We hope people will visit the exhibition and contribute their own presence to the vibrant energy of Detroit.”

Opening reception will be held in the Elaine L. Jacob gallery Friday, January 26th from 5 to 8pm.

For further information, please contact Lisa Gonzalez, Director of Galleries at 313-577-2423