TALKING DOLLS
The mission of Talking Dolls is to empower our Northeast Detroit neighborhood through justice-focused initiatives. We create a nexus of progressive art and community-lead activism through access to our shop and exhibition facilities, use of our infrastructure for performance and celebration, as well as experimental art workshops.
Talking Dolls is the collective artists studio that I’ve co-managed for the last 10 years in Detroit. I’ve owned the 7500sf building where the collective resides for 7 years. I have just completed the process of turning the building into a cooperatively owned community space. The mission of Talking Dolls is to empower our Northeast Detroit neighborhood through justice-focused initiatives. We create a nexus of progressive art and community-lead activism through access to our shop and exhibition facilities, use of our infrastructure for performance and celebration as well as experimental art workshops. Current members include: Ron Watters, and Andrea Cardinal. Past members include: Aaron Jones, Mark Dineen, Tiffany Massey, and Brian DuBois.
Talking Dolls has been a mainstay in our Northeast Detroit neighborhood for 10 years in an area of the city devoid of many cultural spaces. The space houses a, 500 sf gallery, fabrication wood shop, and a high-production cooperative screenprinting studio. We have hosted interactive performance installations, artist collectives, community meetings, and art workshops. Talking Dolls hosts one of the largest black-owened printing studios in the midwest. We are able to print thousands of posters, t-shirts, and ephemera for many local grassroots organizations and initiatives. We also develop other screen printing businesses and entrepreneurs through access to resources and an apprenticeship program. Talking Dolls has the only black-owned automatic garment screen printing presses in the state of Michigan.
Talking Dolls has a 10 year record of retaining artists and designers in Detroit through the Incubator Residency. The residency was started as a way to anchor an otherwise transient community of artists earning their Master’s degrees from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. It has since grown to become a resource for black and brown artists from Cranbrook and beyond to establish their practices in the city. The residency program is a portal for these artists to directly engage the city of Detroit and its people through the community built by the studio members. Many past residents have stayed in the city starting their own studios and collectives. Our residents have gone on to prestigious teaching, exhibiting, and curatorial positions world-wide. Past residents include: Jova Lyne, Conrad Egyir, Victoria Shaheen, Hannah Dewhirts, and Ebi Baralaye.
Role: Founding member, building owner, curator, maintain facilities, liaison with community partners, event organizer, studio member
