Project Feature: Lantern Landscapes

#DLECTRICITY presents “Lantern Landscapes: The Past Spreads Out Before Us” by Carrie Morris Arts Production (CMAP), an installation comprised of hand-crafted, miniaturized buildings that recreate the landscape of 1910’s Detroit, depicting the quality of light when streetlights became common in the city. CMAP created silhouette replicas of the buildings in that landscape at 1/20th scale, working with the Detroit Historical Society archives to research the DLECTRICITY festival area as it existed decades ago.

Each building is constructed from a wooden frame set with a matte lining, and installed with a hand-cut silhouette of the specific buildings that lined this section of Woodward Avenue in the 1910’s. The miniaturized buildings are installed with specialty light bulbs that cast a light similar to Detroit’s early street lights from the same time period.