Eco Punks
Eco-Punks explores what emerges when Detroit’s rock music histories are examined through an eco-critical lens grounded in the region’s geological properties. The program considers rock as both material substrate and cultural form, connecting the formation of land to the formation of sound. By convening artists, scholars, and community partners, the workshop’s themes investigate how industrialization and climate change have shaped both Detroit’s physical landscape and its musical and social movements.
Eco-Punks will convene geologists, environmental researchers, music historians, musicians, archivists, and community practitioners to examine how industrialization, extraction, and climate change have shaped Detroit’s physical landscape and cultural movements.
Hosted on Belle Isle, the convening situates these conversations within a site that embodies both geological history and civic assembly.
Admission to Belle Isle Park:
A Recreation Passport is required for vehicles entering Belle Isle Park. If you are planning to visit the Dossin Great Lakes Museum or attend an event and do not have a Passport, you can purchase one on the island.
As of 2026, pricing is as follows (subject to change):
Michigan registered vehicles - $15
Out of state vehicles - $12 for a day pass or $42 for an annual pass
Commercial vehicles - $22 for an annual pass, including buses and limos
More information on the Recreation Passport can be found online at michigan.gov/recreationpassport, however, only out-of-state residents can purchase Passports online. Residents can purchase the Passport at any State Park or when renewing their license tabs annually.
A Recreation Passport is not required for visitors accessing the park by foot, bike or public transit, or for vehicles with a valid Ex-Prisoner of War license plate, a Disabled Veteran plate, a Medal of Honor plate or Congressional Medal of Honor plate.
Parking:
Parking is free for vehicles with a valid State of Michigan Recreation Passport or a Day Pass. A parking lot is located adjacent to the museum off of The Strand.
Schedule:
4:00 – 4:10pm – Opening Remarks: Detroit Rock City (Ash Arder)
4:10 – 4:40pm – Detroit Dowsing Rods (Ryan C. Clarke)
4:40 – 5:00pm – Rituals of Geology: Indigenous Copper Mining in the Great Lakes (Dr. Michelle Bebber)
5:00 – 5:45pm – Strolling Dinner and Music from the Mountains: African Rhythms and Instrumentation (Rev. Robert B. Jones, Sr.)
5:45 – 6:30pm – Keynote: Race, Rock, and Cultural Gatekeeping (Dr. Kimberly Mack)
6:30 – 7:15pm – Panel Conversation: The Pit: Notes on Collectivity (Moderated by Dr. Robin K. Williams, featuring Ryan C. Clarke, Dr. Michelle Bebber, Rev. Robert B. Jones, and Dr. Kimberly Mack)
7:15 – 8:00pm – Closing Concert: 1967 Love-In featuring Marcus Elliot
Presenter Biographies:
Ash Arder
Ash Arder (she/they) is a transdisciplinary artist and educator whose research-based approach works to expose, deconstruct or reconfigure physical and conceptual systems – especially those related to ecology and/or industry. Ash manipulates physical and virtual environments to explore materials, mark making, mechanical portraiture and sound design as tools for complicating dynamics of power between humans, machines and the lands they occupy.
Ash is included in the 2026 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and has recently exhibited at the Swiss Institute, Cranbrook Art Museum, California African American Museum, Amant and NXTHVN. She is a 2026 Creative Capital State of the Art Prize awardee, 2025 Knight Foundation Arts + Tech Fellow, and 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellow. Ash has held artist residencies at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Michigan Central x Newlab in Detroit, University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Recess in Brooklyn, and A Studio in the Woods in New Orleans. She received an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Dr. Michelle Bebber
Dr. Michelle Bebber is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. She has degrees in Biological Anthropology (Ph.D.), Experimental Archaeology (M.A.), Interdisciplinary Anthropology (B.A.), and Studio Art (B.A.) with a focus in ceramics. Michelle specializes in experimental archaeology and co-directs the Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Laboratory. Her research has been featured on the Discovery Channel, NPR, and Gizmodo, as well as several other media outlets, including Science and Archaeology magazine. Her research involves early metal technologies, ceramic production and function, and projectile weaponry. Michelle’s current projects are focused on North American Indigenous copper use, the biomechanics of weapon systems, and the human aesthetic experience. Her diverse background, which merges the fine arts and hard sciences, gives her a strong replicative skillset and a unique perspective on past tool production processes, innovation, modification, and usage.
Ryan C. Clarke
A tonal geologist from the Northern Gulf Coast, Ryan Christopher Clarke notices the passage of time as both a trained sedimentologist and artist-researcher as co-editor at dweller electronics, a group dedicated towards providing Black counterpoint within an otherwise eurologically dominant music industry. His individual works investigate local cultural objects and their metaphysical communications with their proximal geological landscape.
Marcus Elliot
Multifaceted saxophonist and composer, Marcus Elliot, has emerged as one of the leading voices of the Detroit music scene. The New York Times has called him "convincing and confident, evolved in touch and tone...". Marcus creates music with the hope of “reminding myself and listeners that we are human beings, and what a gift that is.” He is a recipient of the Joyce Awards (2024), an award for innovative new projects, pioneered by artists spanning the visual, performing, and multidisciplinary arts that engage diverse communities in the Mid-West. He is also a recipient of the Kresge Fellowship (2020), awarded to artists who are recognized for their creative vision and commitment to excellence within a wide range of artistic disciplines. Marcus is a lecturer at the University of Michigan, and is director of the Creative Arts Orchestra. Marcus has performed and/or collaborated with Terence Blanchard, Karriem Riggins, Talib Kwali, Marcus Belgrave, Brian Eno, Shigeto, Robert Hurst, Anthony Davis, Jeff Tain Watts, and many others.
Reverend Robert B. Jones Sr.
Reverend Robert Jones, Sr. is an inspirational singer, songwriter, storyteller and self-taught award-winning multi-instrumentalist. He plays guitar, harmonica, mandolin, banjo and fiddle using folk, blues, spirituals and other American Roots music to champion the history, beauty and power of our shared culture.
A lifelong Detroiter, Rev. Jones has been performing professionally for nearly 30 years throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He has entertained and educated audiences of all ages in schools, colleges, libraries, union halls, prisons, churches and civil rights organizations. His deep love for traditional African American and American music is shared in live performances that interweave timeless stories with original and traditional songs. At the heart of his message is the belief that our cultural diversity tells a story that should celebrate, not just tolerate.
Dr. Kimberly Mack
Kimberly Mack is Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her book, Living Colour’s Time’s Up, part of Bloomsbury’s acclaimed 33 1/3 book series, was published in May 2023. She is also the author of Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), which won the 2021 College English Association of Ohio’s Nancy Dasher Award and was a finalist for the 2022 IASPM-US Woody Guthrie First Book Award. Kimberly’s in-progress book, tentatively titled The Untold History of American Rock Criticism, is focused on the BIPoC and white women writers who helped develop American rock criticism and journalism during the 1960s and 1970s. For this project, she is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Fellowship, a senior scholar research grant from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the Charles Hamm Fellowship from the Society for American Music. Kimberly holds a Ph.D. in English from UCLA and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is a memoirist and music writer, and her public-facing and scholarly articles and essays have appeared in Longreads, No Depression, Hot Press, PopMatters, Relix, African American Review, Popular Music and Society, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and elsewhere.
Dr. Robin K. Williams
Robin K. Williams is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), with curatorial and scholarly interests in visual, performance, sound, and socially engaged artistic practices. At UMMA, she leads initiatives such as the UMMA-Labadie artist research residency program, supporting projects grounded in activism and archival inquiry. Previously, as Curator at The Contemporary Austin, she curated exhibitions including This Land (2023), Tarek Atoui: The Whisperers (2022), and Daniel Johnston: I Live My Broken Dreams (2021), and commissions with artists including Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley, Vivian Caccuri, Celeste, Raven Chacon, Jenny Holzer, and Claire Rojas. She was Ford Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, curating Danielle Dean: True Red Ruin (2018) and co-curating Sonic Rebellion: Music as Resistance (2017), and Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art. Her scholarship on Joan Jonas appears in the journals Stedelijk Studies and Sin Objeto. Williams holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Texas, has taught at UT-Austin and Texas State University, and has served on public art committees at both institutions.