Detroiters who built a nonprofit to give young artists the space they never had.
Dehvin Banks had been turning the idea over in his head since at least 2017, back when he was a student at Eastern Michigan University. A visual artist and graphic designer, he kept running into the same wall that so many young Detroit creatives hit: there was nowhere affordable to actually practice, show, and sharpen your craft alongside other artists.
So he and two friends built the space. In 2023, Banks, now 25, co-founded The Vision Detroit with Layla McMurtrie and Jai'La Logan, a nonprofit giving young artists across every medium free and low-cost opportunities to create. One of its anchors is Drawn Together, a biweekly meetup that turns strangers into a creative community.
The mission is a bridge. The Vision Detroit describes its work as closing the gap between artists and the community around them, making sure the city's young creative talent has somewhere to grow instead of leaving to find it elsewhere.
"There was nowhere for young Detroit artists to create. So three of them made one."
It would have been easy to treat the lack of creative space as just another thing Detroit's young artists had to work around. Banks and his co-founders treated it as something they were allowed to fix, and built the room themselves. Scenes grow when someone decides to host them.
This is the ecosystem work ANF loves to spotlight. Build the space your community is missing, and keep the door open for everyone who needs it.
The city had the talent. They built it somewhere to go.
