Nearly all member cities are in Europe, but the US has begun to follow suit, with programs in Las Vegas, Ithaca, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Laura Kraftowitz is the co-founder of City of Asylum/Detroit. In the following interview, she shares insight into the experiences of establishing this kind of program here in our city...
A conversation with Laura Kraftowitz, Founding Executive Director of City of Asylum/Detroit
June 15, 2026
literature, activism, culture - detroit city
To further explore Detroit’s role within a broader context, runner has prompted collaborations with people and communities throughout the Industrial Midwest whose practices have also been shaped by collapse and adaptation. Inspired by Franco Berardi's Post-Futurist Manifesto, our editorial approach is grounded in the belief that places typically marked as peripheral or “post-industrial” cultivate forms of experimentation and mutual reliance that would resonate far beyond their unique cultural ecosystems. Rather than searching for the future’s next “utopia,” we are interested in discovering ways that people build meaningful lives from the conditions that already exist around them...
Ashley Cook
May 27, 2026
literature, activism - detroit city, great lakes region
We just celebrated Earth Day, and we’ve been observing environmentalists and sustainability efforts throughout Detroit. In celebration, Theresa Landrum, Ricky Blanding, and Ian Solomon shared with us their ongoing contributions to the city’s eco movements with US in mind...
Saybin Samone Roberson and Catie Goins
April 28, 2026
activism, columns - detroit city
Isabelle Weiss is the founder and director of the I.M. Weiss Gallery, a Detroit-based exhibition space dedicated to representing artists whose work stands at the forefront of contemporary craft and design. Her education in the History of Art and Linguistics from the University of Michigan paired with an appraisal accreditation from International Society of Appraisers has equipped her as a crucial figure within Detroit’s creative community. This weekend she will be debuting her newest project, Art in Action...
An interview with Isabelle Weiss
March 4, 2026
art, activism, culture - detroit city
This exhibition is the first time I’ve witnessed a public calling out of the woven networks between the art community and the billionaires’ strong hold on Detroit. There is so much to disentangle between these networks that one exhibition, public event, or writing cannot possibly cover all of the facets of the ever morphing and expanding web of art washing in the city.
Nox Library
December 13, 2025
art, activism - detroit city
On Saturday, October 25, 2025, Runner Magazine presented a lecture by Walter Lucken IV followed by a Q & A moderated by Eleanor Aro and Emily Jones of Michigan Student Power Alliance. The talk took place in the Clara Stanton Jones Friends Auditorium at the main branch of the Detroit Public Library. The event addressed the concerns originally expressed by Lauren Berlant in the text ‘68 or Something. Walter Lucken, Eleanor Aro, Emily Jones, and audience members asked what we can learn by moving beyond the memory of 1968 and releasing our attachment to a triumphant past?..
Walter Lucken IV
October 27, 2025
literature, activism - detroit city
Created after the March for Our Lives Protest in 2018, Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan (DAYUM) empowers young people to take control of social change by training them in political activism and leadership...
Leslie Cieplechowicz
June 26, 2025
activism, culture - detroit city
On June 14, 2025, the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, threw a military parade in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the 250th birthday of the US Army as well as his 79th birthday. While this was happening, the “No Kings Protest,” against Trump’s militant and divisive policies, was initiated by the 50501 Movement, a nationwide grassroots organization formed to protest Donald Trump’s second term...
E-Man Bates
June 15, 2025
activism - detroit city
Alvarez is the Communications Director of the Detroit Disability Power (DDP) whose mission is to build the political power of the disability community and end disparities in employment, education, healthcare, housing, and transportation...
Leslie Cieplechowicz
February 17, 2025
activism, culture - detroit city
“We work to nourish, protect, connect, and cultivate the ecosystem of media for liberation of specific groups,” says Toni Moceri, the Executive Director of Allied Media Projects. AMP strives to “make the radical practical by providing highly specialized and politically competent administrative and project support to cutting edge Queer, Trans and BIPOC media makers who are working towards liberation”...
Leslie Cieplechowicz
January 27, 2025
activism, culture - detroit city
In 2024, Baldwin would have been one-hundred years old. His milestone birthday was celebrated all over the United States, and the world. In Paris, from September 9th to 13th, 2024, the James Baldwin Centennial Festival recognized his continued relevance by honoring his life and writing. The festival was organized by Tara Phillips, the eloquent and dedicated Executive Director of the Paris-based non-profit, La Maison Baldwin, which was established in 2016 to preserve James Baldwin’s memory and contributions to literature and political activism...
Roopa Chauhan
January 20, 2025
art, literature, activism - detroit city, central europe
June 5, 2021 was the most recent FUCK ICE car wash with the focus on the abolition of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. This event was located on Breckenridge in Detroit, a desolate street just North of 1-94 and just west of Grand River avenue. This area resembles a country road with foliage overgrowth, a giant dead tree and just a couple houses on the block. It very much sets the tone for this Detroit car wash, as this vacant-ness and free growth of the wild natural plants are complemented by the beautiful cars that are ever so prevalent in a Detroit summer...
Ashley Cook
June 14, 2021
activism - detroit city
Float the Vote was one such point of curiosity that I felt could be fully realized and brought forth into the physical world because of a sincere focus on strengthening access to voting in communities around Detroit. I was ecstatic to discover I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Feeling calm, ready, and vigilant, our five-person team set out into the sprawling urban landscape of Detroit to recruit food trucks and reach as many people as possible...
Brandon Stuart
February 15, 2021
activism, culture - detroit city
On July 31st of this year, the Twitter account belonging to Wayne State University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors tweeted that "lowering Black student enrollment by 40% is nothing to celebrate!" and that the Wilson administration had moved the university "away from its mission to serve our community in Detroit"...
Walter Lucken IV
December 7, 2020
activism, literature - detroit city
I grew up in a very small Midwestern town. The type of quaint and sleepy place where every neighbor waved to one-another and knew your brother, your cousin and your great grandmother. The private Christian elementary and middle schools I attended had a 100% white staff and student population. My public high school in the same town maintained roughly 98%. I believe the homogeneity of my surroundings and complete lack of representation or education about any other races, creeds, or colors, wove an intentional fabric of “blissful” ignorance which has taken me half my life to begin to unravel and reconstruct...
Christiana Laine
August 24, 2020
activism, literature - detroit city
What would it mean, as contemporary moderns, to recognize these areas, the hybrids, the blocks of movement of something which is in transition between what it was and what it will be? As many contemporary philosophers and anthropologists are beginning to see this need for control as paradoxical and highly problematic, they are asking “how do we break from these tendencies?” And "what kinds of potential comes with the suspension of our need for control?"...
Ashley Cook
June 8, 2020
activism, literature - detroit city
“Conscious awareness is a powerful tool to transcending unconscious patterns. It fosters an expanded perspective and openness to new possibilities. It is a process of recognizing what is going on inside and out, the effects of decisions and actions, and the interaction between the complex array of factors and forces. It is seeing, observing our thoughts, recognizing our feelings and the effect they are having on us and others; it functions as...
Ashley Cook
April 24, 2020
activism - detroit city