Plants After Plants is a single-sheet screen printed zine, created in collaboration with Nathan Dell and printed live at the 2014 Mid Michigan Zine Festival. It explores the history, plants, and detritus of former-brownfield-now-public-park, Chevy in the Hole. Chevy in the Hole, established in the 1930s, was the site of a large Chevrolet manufacturing complex along the banks of the Flint River at the center of the City’s watershed. One of four major production facilities in Flint, the complex featured 17 buildings and employed around 8,000 workers at its peak. It also played a prominent role in the infamous Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937 that led to the unionization of the domestic automobile industry. Plants began to close in the mid-1990s and the last building was demolished in 2004. At the time of the creation of Plants After Plants, it was a 130-acre brownfield, paved with asphalt to minimize the movement of residual contamination. Now, it’s a large public greenspace known as the Chevy Commons.

 

The zine features drawings of plants found growing on the site, collaged with scans and papercuts of detritus recovered from the site, plus a poster about the history of the site.