You can’t miss it. The art installations Scott Hocking creates are big. Really big. Over the years, he’s learned to operate large machinery like cranes and forklifts to put them together. The Detroit native has created these installations in his hometown but also in France, Germany, Australia, Iceland, China, and elsewhere, including places in this country. In September, he’ll be at the Prairie Ronde Artist Residency in Vicksburg to create his interpretation of the space that’s the former Lee Paper Company mill.
“I work with a site, with history. I like to get to know a place and use buildings that had a previous use, a previous history, but are currently in some new stage, maybe rebirth,” Hocking says. “For me, working at a site-specific facility in a large, old factory, it’s pretty much what I’ve done for the last 25 years.”
Hocking’s work is a kind of urban archeology, as he gathers found materials, the detritus of old and abandoned buildings, and their surroundings. Dotting the greater Detroit landscape, his sculptures can be found at Michigan Central Railroad Station, the General Motors Fisher Body Plant, Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place), the Detroit Riverfront, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Cranbrook Art Museum, and many others. He is recognized as one of Detroit’s most important contemporary artistic voices.
Hocking says with much of his work, he hopes to change the viewer’s perspective on their surroundings.
“Almost like a core belief I’ve had since I’ve started making artwork decades ago was just a feeling about how humans like to avoid thinking about death,” he says. “They like to separate themselves from the natural world, I think in our culture especially. Any sign of decay, in my mind, is a reminder that everything decays, and we like to eliminate that. So early on in Detroit, I felt like there was a clear thread between people wanting the decay and the abandoned buildings to be eliminated and this fear of death, this constant reminder that we are a part of the natural world. Everything we make will be taken apart by Nature.”
To counteract that, Hocking says he hoped to jog that perception if he created art in a building about which people had negative ideas.
“Maybe it would change that perspective, maybe they would see the building differently,” Hocking says. “It’s a lofty hope, but you never know.”
Hocking plans to explore the former Lee paper Company Mill during his residency and create an installation that gives his audience there an altered perspective as well. The Prairie Ronde Artist Residency offers artists from a range of disciplines a five- to seven-week stint to work in the historic Village of Vicksburg, Michigan.
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