The United States will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. But how much do the document’s values truly resonate in today’s America? Have they ever?
A new art exhibition, featuring 10 large-scale talking drum sculptures by 11 Detroit artists, examines these questions. Presented by Bedrock’s Decked Out Detroit, non-profit The Stories of Us and the Downtown Detroit Partnership, the show encourages viewers to learn about the past, understand the present, and reimagine the future — focusing on the Declaration’s ideals of solidarity and equity.
“These were not a reality in 1776 and they’re not a reality today, yet they are so much a part of our identity as Americans and who we believe we are,” Ashley Shaw Scott Adjaye, co-founder of The Stories of Us, says. “This is a critical time in American history where it feels like we are so often set up for conflict, rather than for curiosity, for solidarity, this willingness to extend grace to each other. We believe that art has the power to move past some of the barriers we create between each other, whether it’s religion, or our gender, or our race, ethnicity. At the end of the day, we are humans and we believe that art has the power of a human language for us to connect.”
Created by Shaw Scott Adjaye and Dennis Marcus, the art education nonprofit’s first-ever exhibit is debuting in Detroit at Capitol Park from June 12-July 7, then moving to Valade Park from July 9-Aug. 15, and finally will be on display at the Afro Nation Detroit festival from Aug. 18-19. After Detroit, the exhibit will travel to Atlanta and other U.S. cities over the next year and a half, growing to feature 50 sculptures by 2026.
The initial exhibition showcases works by Detroit artists that highlight the city’s diverse talent across generations and backgrounds. Featured artists include Peter Daniel Bernal, Darius Baber, Shirley Woodson, Senghor Reid, Khary Mason, Cailyn Dawson, Ackeem Salmon, Juniper Jones, Nicole Macdonald, DeAnn Wiley, and Hubert Massey.
In the making for 18 months, these artists collaborated on their sculptures in the undeveloped third floor of the city’s newly revitalized Book Tower.
“We got to really feed off of each others’ energy and creativity, share information and experience,” Reid says. “To be able to do that and not work on these pieces in isolation, I think makes this project even more real.”
For the project, Reid collaborated with his mother, Shirley Woodson, on a piece titled “Ancestral Journeys” under the theme “Emancipation,” a mixed-media sculpture of historic family photographs and painting.
“I’m a painter and my mom is a painter as well, but my mother has a large body of collage work where she uses ancestral photographs,” Reid says. “We have a family reunion every year, coming up on our 50th year pretty soon, but my mom is a part of the historical committee. So, for years, she and another cousin of mine were responsible for going to the library, looking up old census records, traveling down to Pulaski, Tennessee where my family’s from, to really discover and really identify key people in our lineage, trying to go back as far as we can. In doing so, in talking to her aunts and people who were still alive at the time, they started sending her all these photographs from the late 1800s and early 1900s and she started creating this body of collage works. For this project, using my mother’s approach and some of those photographs, we thought it would fit perfectly with the theme of emancipation.”
Reid describes the process of creating the sculpture as “painstaking” and “challenging,” yet entirely rewarding.
“Artists love being challenged,” Reid says. “I loved every minute of it and it really turned out even better than I could have ever imagined. I just love the way it came together and really allowed for my mom and I to really tell the visual narrative in the way that we have intended from the beginning.”
He adds, “It means a lot because I’m able to connect with my family. I mean, so many African Americans, their knowledge of their ancestral lineage only goes back so far due to enslavement. So, to know that I have these ancestors who were farmers, who at the time were very successful farmers, had all of these creative skills, I mean it’s very empowering for me to know that I can draw strength from all that they had to go through and persevere through so that I could be here today making art.”
The larger-than-life talking drum sculptures featured in Stories of Us exhibition were designed by Jomo Tariku to celebrate the drum’s role in bringing people together across cultures and time.
“During enslavement, many plantations banned the use of the drum because we were able to communicate to enslaved Africans in other plantations,” Reid says. “To be able to have this kind of form and for us as artists to create this imagery to tell the story, and then for these drums to travel to another city and have another group of artists speak through the drums – it’s beautiful. To be a part of it is truly an honor.”
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Layla McMurtrie
Detroit artist DeAnn Wiley stands next to her sculpture “Letters to Tyree Guyton.”
DeAnn Wiley, a Detroit painter, digital artist, and children’s book illustrator, created a sculpture titled “Letter to Tyree Guyton” under the theme “Me Reimagined.” The piece features Black children in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood outside of the artist’s version of the Heidelberg Project, an outdoor art project created by Guyton around three decades ago.
While Wiley says he probably doesn’t know her, she wants her piece to be a thank you to Guyton for impacting her journey to becoming the artist she is today.
“[The theme] made me think about when I was younger, going around, driving around Detroit, seeing all of the different murals and the Heidelberg Project and just how it kind of ignited my curiosity into expression and art,” Wiley says. “I thought about their roles, all the artists around Detroit, known and unknown, and what their role was in creating this society and how it impacted me as a child to now be an artist in my 30s.”
When it comes to the entire Stories of Us exhibition wanting people to look forward, Wiley emphasizes the importance of children in shaping the future.
“I think that children move the needle forward, and so I wanted to appeal to children, speak to children, hopefully empower children, so that’s why I depicted a bunch of little Black kids around this neighborhood, and they’re responsible, and they each have a role in kind of what they’re doing to create this little world in the scene,” she says. “It’s very important for me to have children and characters of all abilities, skin tones, body shapes, and everything like that in my art. That’s how I let those people who are usually kind of left out, know that they are important, that they belong in the art.”
The opening of Stories of Us in Detroit is significant for the organizers and artists, as the rich culture, creativity, and history of the city is reflected in the exhibition’s themes and overall mission.
“When I think about Detroit, I think about resistance and I think about being rooted to something and I think that there’s a lot of spaces where you can clearly see that there’s this gentrification and people kind of moving out, but we still find a way to stay true to the spirit of Detroit, to really stay true to our creativity and our expression,” Wiley says. “I feel so inspired to be from here, and to live here… I think it’s important that it started here.”
“What better place to start than the D?” Reid adds. “Our artistic community in Detroit is so rich, and it’s so active, and it’s been that way for so long. I feel like it’s only natural that it start here… To have all those generations working together to create these forms and to tell this story together is important and it’s what Detroit is all about.”
The Stories of Us co-founders hope the exhibit inspires people to move with purpose, grace, courage, and hope.
“I want people to connect,” Shaw Scott Adjaye says. “I want people to understand that our histories are shared, our present is shared, our future is shared, so it is in our best interest to move into that future with solidarity.”
More information on The Stories of Us is available at thestoriesofus.org.
