The making of Powerhouse Productions’ “Ride It Sculpture Park.” (all images via YouTube)

The making of Powerhouse Productions’ “Ride It Sculpture Park.” (all images via YouTube)

CHICAGO — An artist-run non-profit organization, Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope‘s Power House Productions works to develop and implement neighborhood stabilization strategies in Detroit, a city where property is cheap and the stakes are high. In opposition to the elitist romanticization of poverty through so-called “ruin porn” — which John Patrick Leary nicely rips down in his essay Detroitism in Guernica, pointing out the ways it is exploitative in its depictions of Detroit’s impoverishment — Power House is interested in integrated community involvement through their projects.

Their latest example of this is Ride It Sculpture Park, a skate/sculpture park that utilizes a piece of vacant land, transforming it into both a public space, a landmark and a sculpture park. It has already received $30,000 in funding from the Tony Hawk Foundation; Reichert and crew are working to match that donation through a Crowdrise funding campaign. In our conversation, Gina and I talked about Power House’s mission, Detroit’s “isms,” and how the Power House began. This is part one of a two-part conversation.

Read the full story on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/89448/a-skate-park-as-neighborhood-stabilization-in-detroit/