Faygo(ne)
Following the Civil War, most of the city’s Black residents were "influenced" to relocate to Ypsilanti’s Southside by way of restrictive covenants, arguments in court, and intimidation. One such covenant stated:
In the 1960s, the Southside underwent urban renewal, a process that utilized federal funding to “revitalize” communities. However, in the case of Ypsilanti as well as many other cities, the primary objective seemed to be disrupting a thriving minority community.
Ultimately, the city declared eminent domain and bought around 199 of the 353 parcels, destroying 128 structures. Residents were paid the average of two appraisals, which was most likely very little, and not offered another place to move to nor given priority for the planned houses. Among the structures destroyed were dozens of residential homes, two markets, a beauty salon, and a Faygo distribution center, located at the southwest corner of Harriet and Huron Streets.
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(A map of Ypsilanti's Southside from a 1953 Ann Arbor News article; a map from 1927 showing where the Ypsilanti Bottling Works (later Faygo) was located, provided by Matt Siegfried; an aerial photo from 1961 of Huron Street at Harriet Street showing where the Faygo distribution center was)
Faygo(ne) is a project inspired by the temporality of the lost Southside buildings. Art students at Ypsilanti Community High School were given unopened glass Faygo bottles and a set of instructions:
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Drink the pop
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Rinse out the bottle
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Decorate the bottle using permanent markers, paint markers, and/or tempera paints
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Document the bottle
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Break the bottle (click here for the breaking process videos)
Like the buildings on the Southside, the students’ work lives on through documentation and spoken word only. This project was initially inspired by artist and Co-Director and Artistic Director of MOCAD Jova Lynne's A Cathartic Exercise in Rage.
* The project’s title is a combination of Faygo and gone.
