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Update: The LOVE Building’s Look Is Evolving

The History

Allied Media Projects is developing the LOVE Building at 4731 Grand River as a hub for social justice organizing, artistic collaboration, and community gathering. In December 2020, the City required the demolition of a condemned and dangerous building on the corner of the lot. That building was home to Our Land Till Death, a mural featuring three Detroiters who lost their lives to racist violence and spiritual leaders in Black and Indigenous struggles for liberation. Knowing the significance of the mural, we began researching how to preserve it. We learned that preservation was not feasible, and so we embarked on a community-driven design process to create a powerful piece that honors the past and expands the mural on the LOVE building.  

Our Land Till Death by Sintex. Photo by Erik Howard

Ancestral Love, Moving Us Forward

We’ve spent the last year working with the creator of Our Land Till Death, Sintex, and the LOVE Building’s Art and Archive Community Advisory Council to develop a renewed mural. We’re excited to officially announce that Ancestral Love, Moving Us Forward will feature portraits of beloved community members who have passed away to acknowledge the powerful influence of ancestors, even after death. Ancestral Love, Moving Us Forward will include three of the original figures from Our Land Till Death – Aiyanna Stanley-Jones, Vincent Chin, and Malice Green. 

Ancestral Love, Moving Us Forward will continue to grow and evolve with our community for years to come. Initially, it fills a quarter of the northwest wall, and we will work with community members to add portraits every two years until it fills the whole wall. We will create a corresponding postcard for each portrait with the image and a short story about the person’s life that will be available inside of the LOVE Building. 

Where We Are Now

We invited all LOVE Building Advisors – the Art and Advisory Council, Neighborhood Advisory Council, and Disability Justice Advisory Council – alongside tenant partners – The Detroit Justice Center, Detroit Narrative Agency, Detroit Community Technology Project, Paradise Natural Foods, and Detroit Disability Justice – to nominate people to be featured in Ancestral Love, Moving Us Forward. All nominees lived the majority of their lives in Detroit and have stories embodying the themes of love, community, and resilience/resistance. 

This week, we will be power washing the LOVE building, which will remove the following artwork: 4731 in a circle, “art living in context”, Cut-out of a Man by John Suave, and the LOVE mural by Michael Owen. We do not take removing the existing artwork lightly. As we’ve gotten deeper into the process of designing the LOVE building, we realized that we needed more natural light, more doors, and a second elevator to make it as welcoming, accessible, and safe as possible. Each of these changes obscured significant parts of existing artwork, in some instances making it illegible. Through more community conversations, it came to light that deaf community members were concerned that the LOVE mural featured an “e” that is not accurate to the ASL alphabet. Additionally, some artwork was associated with white-led gentrification. Power washing the outside of the building is a necessary first step to prepare the surface for a new look that aspires to honor the creative history of the building while moving towards a more community-driven and Detroit-rooted aesthetic that is accountable to the disability community. 

The paint circled in orange will be impacted by the power washing. The paint circled in purple will remain

We know that all-to-often development facilitates erasure, and we want to reiterate our commitment to preserving community history. We are still figuring out what that will look like, but some exciting ideas we’re exploring are: 

  • Creating an oral history archive of audio interviews and photography from both the 4731 Grand River Building and the Core City Neighborhood 
  • Preserving the mural by late-artist, TEAD Vaughn, for the foreseeable future (depicted above in purple circle)
  • Preserving the panels from the installation in the yard (depicted below) and displaying them inside the finished building
Artwork in the yard of the LOVE building

Where We Are Going

A mock-up of the LOVE building made by Designing Justice, Designing Spaces

Members of the Advisory Councils will be voting in the next couple of months to select 10-15 nominees to be featured in the initial stage of Ancestral Love, Moving Us Forward. Any nominees not selected will be revisited in future nomination cycles. We are hoping to paint the mural next spring and have a community celebration next summer.

We are working with Detroit Disability Power and the Disability Justice Advisory Council to make the LOVE building one of the most accessible buildings in Detroit (read more in this article from Yes Magazine). Deep collaboration sometimes means big changes. We are adding a second elevator that will ensure all community members can come and go, even if one of the elevators is down. This doubles the overall size of the tower on the front of the building, and we are exploring different ways to use that space for public art.