Exciting June Programming & Announcements 🌻

Hello, all! Reminder that MdW: Detroit is just around the corner!
Please join us for these public events….

CCS Valade Family Gallery
A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education
460 W. Baltimore, Detroit, MI 48202

States in Play is a public exhibition presented by the College for Creative Studies in collaboration with the MdW Summit Detroit.

Open Hours: June 24 - June 26 | 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Boyer Campbell
6540 St. Antoine St, Detroit MI 48202
https://mdw.art/summit

Friday, June 26th MdW attendees will exhibit work on the 4th floor of the Boyer-Campbell building and highlight the artist behind the organizer in a free-to-the public exhibition.

A curated group exhibition bringing together ~30 artist-organizers from across the Midwest and beyond. Each participant presents work responding to the theme “Facing Present Dangers.”

Exhibiting Artists:
Abbey Behan, Ahniya Butler, Alex Martin, Amal Azzam, Aria Pedraza, Ava Kathryn, Chelsea Smith, Cyrah Dardas, Dai Eades, DaJaniere Rice, Dan Crane, Dio Cramer, Eleni Zaharopoulos, Ellen High, Gyona Rice, Hailey Johnson, Ian Matchett, Jaer Medina, Jex Blackmore, Jordan Buschur, Justin Seng, Kaylan Buteyn, Lilith Okan, LM Forgie, Lorelei d’Andriole, Loyola Colebeck, Luz Magdaleno Flores, Lydia Diemer, Matt Regier, Mïï Gun, Nick Chatfield-Taylor, Tallulah Cartalucca, Wade Medicine, John Engelbrecht, Sam Gould, Witt Siasoco, and Zaryn Prussia

June 26th 7pm - 10pm
& June 27 11am - 2pm
Boyer Campbell
6540 St. Antoine St, Detroit MI 48202

Check out zines, books, prints, and more from over 60 independent printers and publishers across the Midwest at the Books and Multiples Fair.

Born in Ruston, Louisiana and raised across Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas, Aaliyah Christina creates and supports performance work as an administrative manager, curator, movement artist, and writer. She makes dances and writes responses to performance, sociological power dynamics, mental health, and Blackness as a resident on the South Side of Chicago. She has worked and collaborated with community organizations on the South Side like Assata’s Daughters, Southside Together, and Music Moves to ensure the archiving, wellness, and power building of herself and her neighbors. Since 2015, she has worked with other artists like Keyierra Collins, Ysayë Alma, Empress Darling “Shear” Squire, Wisdom Baty, Ayako Kato, and J’Sun Howard to name a few. She specializes in Africanist improvisation with degrees, honors, and vocations granted from institutions known as The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Links Hall, 3Arts, Illinois Arts Council, Sista Afya, and many more. Her writing is featured on Sixty Inches from Center, Injustice Watch, and Performance Response Journal. She created PRAISE MOTHER SQUAD to highlight the multifaceted possibilities of Black majorette dance (aka j-sette) and platform stories about mental health, reproductive rights, and intersecting family dynamics.

Danielle Francisca is a writer and critical thinker on arts, culture, and the political economy. Her work evaluates cultural production against the backdrop of working-class issues and an ever-evolving socio-economic formation. She founded and co-runs Nox Library, an art-centered political education project based in Detroit. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History with Honors from Wayne State University.

Our Emerging Curator program centers collaboration, equity, and experimentation—cultivating the next generation of curatorial voices shaping the future of contemporary art in Detroit and beyond. We are excited to introduce you to emerging curator, Nianna!

NIANNA (née Terri N. O’Neal) is a fourth-generation Detroiter, multidisciplinary artist, curator, and cultural strategist whose practice explores radical worldbuilding, collective imagination, and creative sustainability. Drawing from over two decades of experience in the arts, she develops exhibitions and public programs that blend archival research, autoethnography, community engagement, and interdisciplinary artistic practice.

Rooted in Detroit’s legacy of innovation and resilience, Nianna’s curatorial work investigates how imagination functions as a tool for cultural preservation, social connection, and community transformation. Her approach combines perspectives from museum studies, anthropology, sociology, women and gender studies, and public policy to create participatory experiences that deepen relationships between artists, audiences, and place.

Her proposed exhibition, To Detroit Whimsy, With Love, reflects this curatorial vision. Conceived as a love letter to Detroit’s playful and imaginative spirit, the exhibition examines whimsy as a form of resistance to systems of industrial labor, extraction, and social fragmentation. Through fashion, photography, film, textiles, archival materials, and interactive installations, the project invites artists and visitors to reimagine Detroit beyond narratives of survival and productivity. By centering joy, humor, and creative experimentation, the exhibition positions imagination as an essential practice for building more sustainable and liberated futures.

Throughout her career, Nianna has developed arts programming and cultural initiatives across Detroit, Atlanta, and Boston, collaborating with museums, schools, galleries, and community organizations. Her work consistently centers historically underrepresented voices and explores how creative spaces can serve as sites of learning, healing, and collective possibility.

Nianna holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College, with concentrations in Comparative Women’s Studies and Dance. She remains deeply committed to Detroit as a global center of cultural innovation, drawing inspiration from the city’s artists, organizers, elders, and everyday dreamers.

Thanks for reading! Follow us on instagram to stay up to date with upcoming programs and our other offerings. Hope you all have a beautiful summer <3

With love,
BULK Space team
bulk-space.com
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