This social practice work takes interest in the relationship between several local environmental justice organizations with focuses on varied aspects of the built environment. These primary partners of the project are Indigo Bishop of Free by Design, Robin Brown of Collective Citizens Organized Against Lead, Jennifer Lumpkin of My Grow Connect, and Chris Maurer of redhouse studio. 9413 Sophia Ave seeks to engage with the group’s existing working dynamic, and use the concept of biocycling, a term coined by redhouse studio, as an artistic medium.
The City of Cleveland and Cleveland City Council created the Transformative Arts Fund to distribute a portion of American Rescue Plan Act funds allotted for public art. Some of this funding was awarded to a team who deconstructed the home, recycling and biocycling the demolition waste. The resulting material was used to create a temporary installation, designed with input from community members.
Biocycling refers to a process of using a waste product – in this case, demolition waste – as a substrate to be bound together by mycelium. The resultant object can be used as an alternative building material for sculptural or, potentially, structural purposes. The process of biocycling demolition waste can be remediative, potentially reducing distribution of heavy metals. The material treatment within 9413 Sophia Ave is situated in a post-industrial and post-recycling cultural landscape – it aims to recycle in an active, rather than passive, sense.
The year-long performance of 9413 Sophia Ave includes the choreographed deconstruction and subsequent biocycling of a home which was condemned by the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, resulting, physically, in a participatorily designed installation on the site. By using the concept of biocycling as an artistic medium, the life cycle of a built structure can be considered from myriad perspectives – the material as well as the cultural.
The contents within this book emerged throughout the course of the project, and through archival documents, public images online, research, interviews, portraiture, and time spent along Sophia Ave and within its neighborhood. 9413 Sophia Ave aims, through its specificity, to tell a broader story about the built environment; and the work within this publication, through its geographical specificity, to tell broader stories of the neighborhood. Our blocks and homes, like layers of paint, contain histories that can be difficult to unravel; individual stories stand unmemorialized and without context.
It is important to note that the histories within this document are fragmented, incomplete, and nuanced. Work by the participants in this project - Malena Grigoli, Chris Maurer, Indigo Bishop, Robin Brown, Jennifer Lumpkin, Jacob Koessler, Colin Martinez, of neighboring organizations like the Rid-All Green Partnership, and of academics and artists- uncovers and daylights these histories, contributing to new ideas for the built environment in Cleveland.
This neighborhood was initially a home to those employed at nearby factories. The wood-frame house which stood on this site was built between 1910 and 1915; its first owners were Jozsef and Mary Waday. The residence changed ownership around eight times until its forfeiture in 2023, entering the inventory of the Cuyahoga County Land Bank in 2024.
1910 Jozsef & Mary Waday
1919 John & Margaret Natran
Teraz Bibel
1920 Martin & Paulina Bruncak
1939 Pauline Bruncak
1940 Edward Bobick
1958 Frank & Mary Podnar
1972 Georgia Hughley
1995 Victoria M. Goldsborough
Edition of 2
Printed in the United States of America
Design, text photography © Colin Martinez, Malena Grigoli
This work was made possible through the support of the City of Cleveland and Cleveland City Council’s Transformative Arts Fund.
Printed in the United States of America
Copyright© 2025 Colin Martinez