Elmwood Alight
Elmwood Cemetery
1200 Elmwood St.
Detroit
Saturday, October 3
Cemeteries as a place of rest and a functional green space is always an active debate. How do you maintain the peace and respect of the dead while functionally using vital green space in the heart of the city for (living) people?
That’s been part of the evolution of the historic Elmwood Cemetery on the city’s east side. It sprawls 86 acres, is designated as an arboretum with more than 1,400 trees, and, like many cemeteries in cities, acts as a safe place for wildlife to prosper without disruption from human interaction.
In the past few years, there’s been more buzz about Elmwood. There’s been more public tours here.
After this past weekend, I can say that Elmwood is now home to one of the best annual events in the city.
It’s called Elmwood Alight and it’s instantly become one of my favorite events. It debuted last year and by the looks of it, the city has crowned it a new classic, too, with more than 2,000 people attending over three days and selling out the event on its final day.
It’s inventive. It’s a progressive use of space. It’s entertaining and tasteful.
The brain trust at Elmwood has leaned into its natural bounty — unique history, topography, rich gardens, and landscape — and amplified its appeal as a functional park by partnering up with the arts. Over three days, Elmwood invited nine artists curated by Playground Detroit to create a dozen installations inspired by the theme of “timescapes” — think memory, past, present, future, change (very appropriate considering Elmwood’s main function).
Some were bright, colorful, and bouncy like Sean Hages’s “Wild Aesthetic,” which I’ve covered before for Midbrow. At this point, I think Hages’s stuff should be at every Detroit event, even if it felt a little out of place alongside installations that felt a bit heavier and attached to the cemetery and its landscape.
One was quite literal and steeped in deep-cut downtown Detroit history. Geoff George’s “Elmwood Time Ball” was a glowing orb suspended over a pond.
It was inspired by the historic time balls of Detroit that dated back to the 1860s. Back then, founders of the Detroit Observatory (some of them are interred at Elmwood) would transmit accurate astronomical time to Martin Smith Jewelers at Woodward and Jefferson. At 5 p.m. every day, the ball would drop, assisting Detroiters in setting their time pieces. At least one other jeweler followed suit, creating a Detroit “time ball war.”
Through creative director George’s interpretation with “Elmwood Time Ball,” it’s a “wayfinding beacon” that illuminates the darkness for any wayward souls trying to find their way home.
Dylan Curtis’s “Overgrowth” was absolutely engrossing. As a Detroit-based 3D motion designer, Curtis created a site-specific lapse animation of ivy and moss, growing and exploding and repeating, designed for the Alger mausoleum. It was a projection mapped directly onto the stone facade, creating the illusion of nature’s resiliency over time and its ability to adapt to manmade structures.
Certain pieces were matched with music from groups like Midtown Strings and Technically, Yeah, among others.
“Elmwood Alight is our invitation to the community to explore our beautiful landscape and celebrate the shift in season with us,” Amy Elliott Bragg, director of the Historic Elmwood Foundation, said in a press release. “We’re so lucky to have these talented local artists working with us this year to transform the space and offer our visitors different angles, experiences and ideas along the way.”
Considering this is only Elmwood Alight’s second year, I can’t wait to see how it grows from here.
Follow Midbrow Detroit on social media:
Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X.
