What are you planning for Rumsey Street this fall when ArtPrize returns?

We’ve got a number of interesting collaborations planned, including ones with the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, and a local organization called DisArt, which advocates for people with disabilities to have greater access to art and art-making. We’re also working with the Gordon Matta-Clark estate, which is allowing us to show some of his films in mini-theaters that we’ve set up in the auto-body shop.

Going back to SiTE:LAB’s community outreach—since you’re returning to Rumsey Street for a second year, I assume the reception from locals to last fall ’s shows was positive and no group was against you coming back again?

We would have listened if that had been the case! What I’ve found to be even more helpful than attending community meetings is simply our being present there. This was a totally abandoned street—all the streetlights were turned off. Now I’m there almost every day working on something, whether it’s cleaning a house or working on a lawn, and people walk down the street and say hello. To me, that’s been the most compelling thing. When we first arrived, you didn’t see anybody walking down that street, whereas now there are kids playing soccer in one of the open lots and mothers pushing strollers down the sidewalks, even at night. I know most of the locals, or am at least on a waving basis with them. They probably think, “There’s that crazy guy again, painting a house pink!”

Just another day in the neighborhood. . . .

Exactly! So there’s been a transformation. We got all the lights turned back on, and people feel safer. Some of the early meetings were interesting because we were anticipating some pushback. During one meeting, there was a woman who clearly had something she wanted to say. She waited until the end to speak and stood up and began, “I’ve been biting my tongue this entire evening. . . .” I looked over to my partner, Tom Clinton, and we both expected a tongue-lashing, but instead she said, “I just want to thank you guys for bringing ArtPrize into our community.” They really welcomed us. I’m sure there are people with reservations, or who aren’t interested in contemporary art, but because it’s a Habitat project it’s all been very positive. If this had been some developer coming in to build condos, we never would have done this.

Our community outreach has also led to responses that have given even deeper meaning to some of the artists’ projects. For instance, the church on the property used to be for a Catholic congregation. They actually outgrew the structure and had to move to a larger building a bit farther away. We brought in Nick Kline, who is predominantly a photographer but created a piece where he painted the exterior of the church in stripes. Every day, people would come up and tell stories about their memories of the church, such as, “My son was baptized here” or, “I was married here.” You could tell that people had a strong emotional connection to the place, and not just in a nostalgic way. We all have feelings of nostalgia for houses we’ve lived in or areas in which we grew up, but there was something more going on here. People missed that church, even if they attended the new, bigger and better one. It’s so interesting that it took this art project to reveal that.

Danielle Whalen is market editor at Art + Auction and writes for Modern Painters and Blouin Artinfo. A version of this article appears in the fall 2016 issue of Visual Arts Journal.