Sidewalk Festival 2025
All Day Installations
Olivia Eshe
Title: Body of Water: Water Feature Installation
Description: “Body of Water” is a water feature installation inviting participants to tune into their senses. This ecosystem aid engages with wildlife on site and encourages participants to take a deeper look at their environment. Located along the nature trails.
Other Work
Title: WHISPER and shout
Description: WHISPER and shout are a pilgrimage through curated prompts and structures that support collective and individual healing through sonic cleansing and discovery. Sounds of human voice, through individual and collective release, shape space and build relationships among the environment and each other. Located next to Pavilion #1.
Detroit Soundmap Collective
Title: Eliza Howell Soundmap
Description: Through soundmapping, music, and shared memory, we will build a living archive in Eliza Howell Park that is guided by community voices, rooted in place, and designed as an open, evolving soundscape for future generations.
Juan Martinez
Title: The Spirit of the Animals is in the Wheels
Description: Catch a bicycle ride with one of the animals! This project by artist Juan Martinez and author Dave Eggers, features a collection of rideable, animal-shaped sculptures built on bicycle frames. These creations, including a bear, a bison, and a pangolin, are designed to raise awareness about transportation challenges faced by children in Detroit.
Cyrah Dardas
Title: Conversations with the Wind
Description: Conversations with the wind It is an immersive installation inspired by Maple seeds' ability to “fly” due to their sacred geometry. The kinetic copper sculpture will be suspended in the Tree Grove Field and spin utilizing the power of wind, generating sound.
Otodojo
Title: Park Echoes
Description: An immersive and interactive spatial sound experience where participants are invited to collaborate to reveal and contribute to a collective generative soundscape from Eliza Howell Park, evoking connections with other participants through sonic programs requiring collective action. Located in the Tree Grove Field.
SKATE PARK: Roll into WILD. RHYTHM. at the Skate Park with A Positive Seed, bringing high-energy skate demos, open lessons, and a exciting competition. Throughout the event, skate gear giveaways keep the wheels rolling as beats blast from the Magic Bus and youth build in carpentry workshops, the space transforms into a live street-style runway for a fashion show by Detroit’s Fashion Revolution. This is where motion meets expression—style, wheels, and wild creativity collide.
2:00 - 4:30
A Positive Seed
Title: Learn to Skate
Description: A Positive Seed provides a safe space in the skateboarding community that is welcoming to all. We want to encourage people from all walks of life and of all abilities to skate or learn how to skate with us! This Learn to Skate program will be focused on youth between the ages of 6-17yo. 30 minutes of skate instruction time for groups of up to 15 participants at a time throughout the festival.
2:00 - 6:00
Brightmoor Makers Lab
Title: DJ Booth & Carpentry for Kids
Description: The bus will be booming with beats by RAED along with a carpentry workshop. Kids are welcome to learn the tools of the woodshop and make a bench with Bart Eddy at the Brightmoor Makers Lab Bus.
2:00 - 6:00
Raed Ransom
Title: DJ Set at the Skate Park
4:30 - 5:30
Fashion Revolution Detroit Design Collective
Title: Deck'd Out Runway
Description: Deck’d Out Runway is a fashion show on wheels that merges Detroit’s cutting-edge design talent with the bold energy of skate culture to celebrate self-expression, performance, and sustainability. Presented by Fashion Revolution Detroit and A Positive Seed, this dynamic showcase features original looks by local designers—including Blight Hernandez, Emery Jones, Ari Harris, Andrew Wilson, Sarah Jane Mark, and Edwin Geronimo—who will compete for a $500 prize. Designers will be judged on Creativity, Sustainability, and Functionality as they push fashion boundaries with garments made for movement, highlighting environmental equity and reimagining fashion as a force for justice, creativity, and bold self-expression.
Stickwork Sculpture: Surrounded by the winding curves of Patrick Dougherty’s A Walk in the Park, this sculptural sanctuary is the setting for movement, rhythm, and collective breath. Start your day grounded with yoga, then let your spirit soar with a Dabke dance performance and workshop. As music moves the air, artist Yvette Rock invites you to paint, play, and reimagine your own wild path through the brush and branches.
2:00 - 3:00
Yoganic Flow
Get into the flow and let the wind take you through a series of relaxing poses to start your day at the festival
3:30 - 4:15
Thowra Dabke
Title: Dabke As Unified Resistance
Description: "Dabke as Unified Resistance" - Makes a statement and acknowledgement of Palestinian resistance in the form of dance and seeks to preserve the culture and educate the audience about the challenges that is faced.
2:00 - 7:00
Yvette Rock
Title: What Came from Dirt (Elijah Howell Park #1)
Description: The Project is a live art-making and interactive experience where I will visually incorporate guests' answers to the question, "What Comes From Dirt?"
2:00 - 7:00
Queen Sabrina
Title: Healing Through Horsemanship
Description: Renewal through Horsemanship invites participants to engage with horses in a workshop experience that nurtures emotional healing, builds trust, and develops personal growth. Techniques include hands-on interactions, reflective activities and guided horsemanship activities.
Field Stage: In this wide-open green, big energy meets big artistry. This field is where RESISTANCE becomes RHYTHM—featuring dance that shakes the ground, a jam session and soulful RnB that calls your body into movement. The performances here are powerful, raw, and full of story—a place to be moved and set free.
2:30 - 3:30
Shanzell Page
Title: Salt in the Soil: A Sonic Offering Inspired by Dorothy Ashby
Description: Salt in the Soil is a site-responsive ritual featuring tap dancers and a live jazz ensemble inspired by Dorothy Ashby. Through rhythm, salt offerings, and live music, the work transforms Eliza Howell Park into a sacred space for cultural memory, ceremony, and liberation.
4:30 - 6:30
Matt Lemons
Title: Jam Fest
Description: Come Jam! Bring Your Band! Axe, your talent and your positive vibes and enjoy amazing performances from all genres that have been from Detroit to all over the world
7:00 - 7:30
IDEEYAH
Title: Sweet Chariot
Description: Sweet Chariot is a small collection of sonic devotions: meditations, revelations, and transmissions for those listening between the lines.
Tree Grove Field: Wander off the path into the WILD. Along these winding trails and tree groves, discover unexpected dance performances, intimate storytelling, soundscapes, interactive installations, and healing wellness spaces. Watch for wildlife and meet the land with awe—this is where STORY and NATURE weave together, inviting you into quiet wonder and surprise encounters.
3:30 - 4:00
Chris, Ta’Rajee, Woolfolk, Omar
Title: Wild Winds and the Stories They Tell
Description: Wild Winds and the Stories They Tell is an interactive installation using wind chimes, movement, and community storytelling to create a sacred space for reflection. It invites connection with nature and explores the power of ancestral stories through sound, rhythm, and collective memory.
All day interactive installations by Cyrah Dardas and Otodojo are also located in the Tree Grove Field.
Pavilion #1: Tucked near the wetlands, this quiet haven is filled with croaking frogs, puppet stories, and interactive workshops. Off the beaten path, you’ll find this pavilion alive with imagination and nature’s soundtrack. A place where STORY is told through action, movement and playful connection.
2:00 - 3:00
Triniti Watson
Title: Rememory: Layers of the Self
Description: Rememory: Layers of the Self is a spoken word and audio spatial performance that invites community members to reflect on their relationship to time, nature, and the stories that shape their sense of self.
5:30 - 6:30
Flying Cardboard Theatre
Title: "What Makes Us Safe" Cantastoria
Description: "What Makes Us Safe" is a cantastoria (street-theater performance) about increasing police surveillance in Detroit. A “Cantastoria” is a traditional form of street theater where narrators tell a story while interacting with painted banners. The “What Makes Us Safe” cantastoria is narrated by Mama
Nature Trails By Pavilion #1: Wander off the path into the WILD. Along these winding trails and tree groves, discover unexpected dance performances, intimate storytelling, soundscapes, interactive installations, and healing wellness spaces. Watch for wildlife and meet the land with awe—this is where STORY and NATURE weave together, inviting you into quiet wonder and surprise encounters.
2:00 - 7:00
Motor City Mobile Wellness
Title: “People Care Tent”
Description: A “People Care Tent” is a physical and spiritual space for people to come to feel safe, practice heart-led conflict resolution, receive/trade healing and wellness services, locate trusted local resources and weave alternative care networks across Michigan.
3:00 - 6:00
Lisa LaMarre
Title: Wild
Description: A movement/dance live performance response to the pollination crisis on Earth. The dancers’ bodies reflect the spontaneity, transportation, and interactions wild pollinators, such as bees, birds, bats, flies, beetles, and butterflies, have on supporting a healthy ecosystem.
4:00 - 4:30
Strmstokes
Title: There Can Be Angels
Description: Transdisciplinary performance work ‘we are angels’ will combine soft sculpture, liberatory movement vocabulary, and interrogative, narrative soundscapes to invite audiences to embrace the spiritual restoration accessible to us when we reclaim our relationships to the natural world.
4:30 - 5:00
Shua Group
Title: Grassy Presence
Description: Grassy Presence invites participants into a direct sensory experience of their environment and each other through a guided tactile exploration with grass, leaves, bark, earth and each other.
5:00 - 6:00
Efe, KMT, Lae
Title: Elemental Oasis
Description: Elemental Oasis, rooted in rhythm, resistance, and storytelling, invites participants into a living ritual of breathwork, drumming, movement, and voice activation. This immersive healing process connects participants with Eliza Howell Park as a sanctuary of wild restoration.
Magic Hill: Ascend to the tallest point in Eliza Howell Park—The Magic Hill—a place where performances pop up, kites fly high, and laughter rolls down like thunder.
2:00 - 7:00
Kite Making w/ Windjammers
3:00, 4:00, 6:00
Detroit Bird Alliance
3:30 - 4:30
Cherise Morris
Title: The Cosmic Matter of Black Lives Ritual-Performance
Description:“The cosmic matter of Black lives” is a series of experimental ritual-performances exploring the intersections of Black liberation and environmental restoration through movement, sound and ancestral ritual practices.
Tree grove stage: Step into the shady grove where trees hum with bass and breeze. You’ll find immersive installations, dance, a DJ picnic, live music, and dance performances. This is our sacred closing space—where RHYTHM becomes memory, and the festival breathes its final note.
3:00 - 4:00
Ackeem Salmon
Title: Resonant Grounds: Picnic, Dance, Live Harp and DJ
Description: Resonant Grounds invites the public to picnic, rest, and connect through live harp, DJ sets, dance, and soundscapes woven into Eliza Howell Park’s landscape, honoring Detroit’s rich sonic legacy from Techno to the traditions of Black harpists.
4:00 - 5:00
King Sophia
Title: King Sophia and the Unbroken Circle
Description: King Sophia and the Unbroken Circle is an immersive sonic experience that invites attendees to explore connections between self-love, radical joy, community action, and intersectional work overall. The project is a catalyst for analysis, meditation, dance, mental restoration and collective healing.
7:30 - 8:30
Marcus Elliot
Title: Sounds from the Park
Description: Known for its rich biodiversity and tranquil landscapes, Eliza Howell inspires a deep reverence for the natural world, making it a fitting backdrop for this musical celebration. The ensemble for this performance will feature a string quartet led by the acclaimed King Sophia, with Ian Finkelstein on piano and Caleb Robinson on drums. This collaboration promises to capture the park’s spirit—honoring not only its ecological treasures but also the strong sense of community fostered by those who gather to observe and care for this green space.
8:30 - 9:30
Imani Ma’at
Title: Rituals of the Wild: A Drum, A Dance, A Prayer
Description: Imagine us outside, holding candles in a circle. A drum begins to beat. Songs rise. We sway, then move together—one rhythm, one body, one prayer. Rituals of the Wild is an ancestral portal of drum, dance, and story—a healing gathering rooted in spirit, land, and collective joy.
Kids area / vendors / workshops: This field is a living canvas—a bustling hub of vendors, interactive artist workshops, installations, and family-friendly activities. A place where all ages can explore, create, and be in community. This is WILD RESISTANCE in full bloom—a world where hands-on creation and storytelling are around every corner.
2:00 - 7:00
Stephanie Onwenu
Title: up[ROOT]ed in PLAY_e
Description: “up[ROOT]ed in PLAY_e” is an art installation exploring creativity in outdoor and public spaces. Participants will be invited to participate in responding to the question: What does having a park in your neighborhood mean to you?
2:00 - 7:00
Junepeace Rainbow
Title: Botanical Cyanotype Creative Meditation
Description: Cyanotype Printing and Walking Meditation
2:00 - 7:00
Jessie Feliz
Title: Pica de Gallo!
Description: Make your own pica de gallo with educator Jessie Feliz. Taste the fresh flavors of this classic dish while learning the Spanish language
2:00 - 7:00
YMCA
Title: Field Sports
Description: Sports and field games for all ages.
Pavilion #2: Near the woods and Rouge River lies Pavilion #2, a space deeply rooted in STORY and environmental justice. Through workshops and storytelling focused on water, rain, air, and land, this site reminds us that imagination can be a tool for change. Listen closely—the river has something to say.
2:00 - 7:00
Maya Davis & Stevie Baka
Title: Rain Chain Workshop
Description: At this workshop, participants will make rain chains out of upcycled materials with Sidewalk Detroit’s eco-artist-in-residence, Maya Davis, and multidisciplinary artist Stevie Baka.
2:00 - 7:00
Glastonbury Collective
Title: songs in our soil
Description:Join the Glastonbury Collective in a workshop forming clay wind chimes. Making wind chimes from wild clay from the park. Participants are invited to write stories on the underside of the clay disks. Members from the Glastonbury Collective will provide the technical instruction on creating the wind chime form using harvested clay over plaster molds, individuals are encouraged to leave their unique imprint on the surface texture
2:00 - 7:00
Huron Metro-Parks Storytelling
2:00 - 7:00
Ecology Center
Title: DIY Indoor Air Purifier Workshop
Description: Learn how to build your own low-cost indoor air purifier using simple materials in this hands-on workshop. We'll explore how air pollution affects our health, especially in underserved communities, and walk step-by-step through creating an effective DIY filter you can take home. No experience needed—just a desire to breathe cleaner air and protect your loved ones.
2:00 - 7:00
Every Soul Arts
Title: The Sanctuary
Description: The Sanctuary invites the public to co-create a house-shaped installation using cardboard panels covered in short poems, reflections, and drawings on the theme of sanctuary, contributing to a shared vision of safety, care, and belonging.
