The Trumbullplex is a housing collective and showspace in the Woodbridge neighborhood of

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

, Michigan, USA.

Beginnings

Trumbullplex was created in 1993, when members of the collective known formally as the Wayne Association of Collective Housing established a

nonprofit corporation A nonprofit corporation is any legal entity which has been incorporated under the law of its jurisdiction for purposes other than making profits for its owners or shareholders. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, a nonprofit corporation ma ...

and purchased the property: two Victorian houses and a single-story art space in-between. The two houses are occupied by a fluctuating group of resident collective members, as well as like-minded short-term traveling artists, musicians, and activists. The resident collective members, along with other committed community members, work together to maintain the show space and provide accessible, meaningful community experiences to locals and travelers alike. The Trumbullplex has since grown to also include three adjacent, undeveloped side-lot properties, following a well-publicized bidding war with a local developer in 2016. These side-lots function as community greenspace for potlucks, herb walks, and arts based events. They were bought from the city for $10,000.

Collective

The collective's

mission statement A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation ...

asserts that they “want to create a positive environment for revolutionary change in which economic and social relationships are based on

mutual aid Mutual aid is an organizational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This ...

and the absence of

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy ...

.” It acts on the basis of

consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision-making process in which participants work together to develop proposals for actions that achieve a broad acceptance. #Origin and meaning of term, Consensus is reached when everyone in the group '' ...

and serves as a home, theater,

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

infoshop Infoshops are places in which people can access anarchist or autonomist ideas. They are often stand-alone projects, or can form part of a larger radical bookshop, archive, self-managed social centre or community centre. Typically, infoshops offer ...

, meeting space and temporary residence for traveling activists. The art space is run on a donations-only basis, and members pay an equal portion of the costs involved in the property's upkeep each month. The Trumbullplex collective is engaged in homeless support, LGBTQ activism and Food Not Bombs. Members of the collective and surrounding community run the operations within the theater and meeting space and also participate in alternative schools, such as the high school for teenage mothers, the Catherine Ferguson Academy and CFA farm, the Hub of Detroit (a cycling non-profit located in the city's

Cass Corridor The Cass Corridor is a neighborhood on the west end of Midtown Detroit. It includes the Cass Park Historic District, the Cass-Davenport Historic District and Chinatown, Detroit, Old Chinatown. The corridor's main street, Cass Avenue, runs parall ...

), to Detroit organizations promoting urban agriculture such as Earthworks, and to a variety of other causes and organizations.

Zine library

In 2011, the Trumbullplex completed the addition of a free

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

library located within the showspace, which houses over 2,000 independently published books, pamphlets, and fanzines. Many of these publications were donated to the Trumbullplex following the closing of the now defunct Idle Kids infoshop in Detroit's

. In addition to providing access to the zine library during events in the showspace as well as during regularly scheduled open hours, the Trumbullplex zine library has also provided pop-up versions of the collection at such local events as the Allied Media Conference and the Dally in the Alley festival.

25th birthday

In August 2018, the Trumbullplex celebrated being 25 years old with a two-day party.

References

External links

Website
{{Infoshops Culture of Detroit Arts centers in Michigan Anarchist intentional communities Contemporary art galleries in the United States Residential buildings in Detroit Community-building organizations Housing cooperatives in the United States Infoshops Theatres in Michigan Counterculture communities Event venues established in 1993 1993 establishments in Michigan Cooperatives based in Michigan Socialism in Michigan