The Map and the Madeleine

Detroit, MI, 1993

This map of the city of Detroit struggled to capture past inhabitations and memory in the "empty" spaces of the city. Embedded into the ground of the map were reconstructions of common groupings of household objects. The relief map traced existing, vacant and demolished houses in a residential area east of Gratiot. Excavations performed in the service of inscribing the map "uncovered" the buried artifacts.

Partners: Dan Hoffman and students at the University of Michigan