Foundation Hotel, Detroit

Residual Pane is an edition of 100 hand-printed stone lithographs created by S. Barber Kennedy for the guest rooms of the Foundation Hotel in downtown Detroit. Commissioned by Parini, a design studio known for its thoughtful integration of art and interior architecture, the project embodies the ethos of both the artist and the hotel: reverence for craft, history, and the layered presence of place. Printed at 3 Recurring, Barber’s fine art print shop at Dive Studio in Corktown, the edition draws upon the surfaces or the architecture using rubbings a visual residue eventually imparted onto lthe lithographic stone. These remnants became a starting point for an image that holds presence and absence in tension, much like the city itself. The work engages themes of fragility, memory, and permanence, echoing the adaptive reuse of the Foundation Hotel’s own architecture, once a firehouse now reimagined as a space for rest and gathering. Each print in Residual Pane is housed in a custom shadow box frame, designed to float delicately within its enclosure, offering a quiet moment of stillness and reflection to guests who encounter it. In its surface and structure, the work honors the visible and invisible labor that sustains Detroit’s cultural and material life.