'Drummer Detroit' is an observational portrait of decay. The post-apocalyptic city is channeled with spontaneous compositions. Tina Havelock Stevens creates a traveling performance at the punishing pace of eleven locations in Detroit in a day: from abandoned motor factory floors to burned out storefronts, buildings engulfed by nature’s overgrowth, a grassy field in the shadow of a smelt, to the very steps of historic Motown Records. Intense, driving drumming within these dead, silent spaces suggests that there is a living history here, one that can rise from the ashes.

Detroit is a city whose fortunes have shifted markedly overtime, once an architectural gem of the automobile industry today the city is half derelict, populated by scrappers and a new class of urban hipsters looking for affordable places to pursue their lifestyle. The collapse of cities, such as Detroit, offers a warning on the transient nature of urban landscapes.

Camera & Photographs, Edit, Sound Design & Performer - Tina Havelock Stevens
Drumming Camera work - Maggie Wrigley & Brad Ballard

TINA HAVELOCK STEVENS

Tina is multi-disciplinary artist whose work is defined by a meditation on the relationships we have with each other, the places we inhabit, and ourselves.

Often depicting landscapes, she dwells on sites that are abandoned, decaying, deserted and vacant, to speak of survival and fragility within urban, environmental and emotional spaces.

One of her performance projects sees her enact spontaneous, high-energy and durational performances. Using rock’n’roll drum-kits, the work unfolds as a spectacle that responds and tunes into the frequencies of a specific site and place. These performances are often recorded for future video installations.

Exhibited:
Bulletspace, NYC, October 2014
Finalist Fishers Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2014
Dirt, Dust and Ruins, Emergencity, Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney 2013