Cancer survivors sought for portraits planned on Corktown building
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The CPA Building at Michigan Avenue and 14th Street in Corktown. Photo: Annalise Frank/Axios
An arts nonprofit is still seeking participants for a public art exhibition in Corktown featuring 103 portraits of local cancer survivors and family members.
The big picture: Grand Rapids-based Lions & Rabbits Center plans to install prints of hand-painted portraits on the wedge-shaped CPA Building at a prominent corner of Michigan Avenue, across from Michigan Central.
- But it still needs to secure around 60% of its portrait participants, per executive director Hannah Berry.
- Those interested can sign up on Lions & Rabbits' website.
State of play: The installation "Still Here: Rooted in place, emerging in public" is starting this summer, intended to raise awareness by showcasing the faces and experiences of cancer survivors and caregivers in such a public space.
- The hand-painted portraits by various artists will be displayed in the building's upper windows, alongside paint-by-number community participation murals.
- The exhibition will also include listening stations with recorded stories from individuals affected by cancer, as well as planter beds and community events.
Catch up quick: The project would bring color to a long-vacant, boarded-up building that secured a historic district designation earlier this year to ensure it gets preserved, per BridgeDetroit.
- No plans to reuse the six-story, limestone-and-granite building have borne fruit yet.
- Its New York-based owner, since 2014, has marketed the property to developers and most recently sought to sell it in 2024, according to Crain's.
Flashback: The Neoclassical-style Conductors Protective Assurance Building was built in 1924 for a family-owned stock insurance company that insured railroad workers against job loss before the creation of welfare programs and unemployment insurance, per a historic district report.
- The longtime first-floor tenant was a First National Bank branch.
- The namesake insurance company left Detroit in 1990 for West Bloomfield and dissolved in 2012.
- A bank drive-through canopy was added in 1977 and isn't considered a historic feature.
What's next: Lions & Rabbits expects to unveil parts of the work in late June, then open the installation to the public in October during the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in Corktown.