Detroit Vessels, 2006

The Museum Arbeitswelt (Museum of Labor) in Steyr, Austria, commissioned a city portrait of Detroit for its reopening in 2006. The permanent exhibition working-world.net is dedicated to the dramatic changes in working environments in a globalised economy.

The portrait consists of ten vessel sculptures lathe-turned out of laminated blocks of Tree of Heaven wood. The outlines are based on various statistics (homicides, vacant lots, teenage pregnancies, unemployment Black workforce, unemployment white workforce, among others) relevant to Detroit. The time frame is 1985 (base) to 2005 (top). The data has been provided by Jason Booza, Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University.