News & Views
Rewilding Tradition: The Story Behind Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade
Traverse City is about to get a little wilder. On March 1, Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade will weave through town once again, blending speculative history, folk tradition, and community storytelling into a vibrant, participatory spectacle. Equal parts historical intervention, public art, and seasonal ritual, the parade invites people to step into a living work of art—one where costumes, bells, and chants shake loose the boundaries of what history is, what it could have been, and what it might still become.
At the heart of this annual event is the figure of Piggery Pete, a folkloric being born from the overlooked history of Traverse City’s old piggery. Through the creative lens of artist Kevin Summers, Pete has evolved into something more than a myth—he is a guide to rewilding, to letting go, and to reconnecting with place, play, and collective joy. The parade itself is an act of storytelling in motion, where every participant becomes part of the narrative, reshaping the past while moving forward together.
What makes this event especially compelling is how it challenges conventional ideas of public art. Rather than something to be observed, it is something to be inhabited—what Summers describes as a “social sculpture,” an experience meant to disrupt, engage, and transform. And it is deeply rooted in place: in the soil of Traverse City, in the forgotten corners of its past, and in the people who gather to bring it to life each year.
To understand more about the origins, meaning, and creative process behind the event, we spoke with Kevin Summers. Below, he shares his thoughts on the tradition, the role of art in reclaiming history, and why this parade exists in the first place.
What Is Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade?
Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade is a work of public art that blends speculative history with folk traditions, creating a unique cultural event. It is a relational artwork that invites participation and engagement, embodying the spirit of local history while exploring universal themes of transformation and renewal.
The parade draws inspiration from folk parades around the world, where communities come together to mark the changing of seasons, celebrate harvests, and honor ancestral traditions. These parades often feature colorful costumes, music, bells, and rituals that reflect the values and stories of the people involved.
For instance, Perchten parades in Austria feature costumed figures with hideous masks and large bells who chase away the darkness of winter. Jonkonnu is a festival that blends African, Caribbean, and European traditions, featuring music, dance, and elaborate disguises. Denali Jöel has described Jonkonnu as a form of resistance, where masking serves as both protection and defiance, allowing participants to challenge oppression while preserving cultural identity.
These events are not just entertainment, but collective rituals that strengthen community bonds, mark time, honor shared history, challenge the past, and foster a sense of belonging.
Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade fits within this tradition. It's a shared technology for transforming historical narratives into living experiences and inviting participants to engage with their local heritage. It is an opportunity to reclaim and reinterpret the stories of the region. In these ways, Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade not only honors the past but opens a pathway to alternative futures, reinforcing the idea that art can be a powerful vehicle for collective healing and understanding.
Why Here?
Because I live here.
Piggery Pete’s Perchten Parade is a celebration of localism. It’s enmeshed in the history of Traverse City, but even more specifically, in Brookside, the neighborhood where I live. People don’t often refer to it this way anymore, but that neighborhood was once known somewhat derisively as Pigtown or Pig Alley because it was developed as affordable housing near the site of the piggery that had been part of the Traverse City State Hospital farm. While that farm is widely known for the beautifully restored cathedral barn and the story of Colantha, its deeper agricultural legacy—the orchard, the piggery, the history of labor, a critique of development and resource extraction, what was there before the farm and hospital were developed, and even its connection to housing insecurity and proximity to the Pines—has largely not been addressed.
Living in Brookside, I started thinking about how our understanding of hyperlocal history shapes a place. Whether that means remembering the history of farms and agriculture, Indigenous culture, or the punk and noise shows that happened at the Opera House in the 1990s. How far back can we go? What layers of history are buried beneath our daily lives?
I’ve met so many people who don’t know the history of their own neighborhoods. At the same time they are part of that history. This parade is a response to that feeling—a way to live through and with history. I think there’s value in seeing yourself as part of the historical flow and legacy of a place.
This parade is about uncovering those stories, pulling them forward, seeing what they mean for us here and now, imagining how things could have been different, and doing that work joyfully now. It’s about authentically loving a place, which means seeing how it really is, and then working with it over time to create something new together.
Why Now?
I think this idea was there waiting and it was the right time for me to steward it.
A few years ago, as an artist-in-residence at SEEDS, I was thinking about public art—not just in terms of where or how we place art in the landscape, but how deeply it connects to the land, its history, and the people who live there. Too often, public art is treated as just another thing in the planning, economic development, or placemaking toolbox along with hardscaping and interpretive signage. I don’t see public as a feature of a site plan. I see it as an intervention and a disruption of those plans. I’m thinking here about social sculpture, relational aesthetics, performance art, degrowth, ecofeminism, and the natural rights of Earth—ways to engage people and the land beyond just spectatorship. How do we retether public art back to the powerful and transformative legacy of these ideas and art movements?
We talk about public art a lot locally and I think this is a good example of an alternative approach.
Why Does It Exist?
This parade exists because I’m interested in local history. Because I want to push the conversation about public art in new directions. Because I believe in the radical, transgressive, and healing potential of art—not just for me, but for my neighbors and for the land itself.
On a personal level, Pete is an avatar for me. At middle age I was reckoning with the realities of my own life. Pete became a way for me to work through those emotions, embodying the experience of a heart breaking open over time, deepening in its understanding of love and connection through a relationship to land, community, and personal awakening.
In this sense, Pete is an alchemical figure, transmuting history, art, and personal reflection into something new—an avataric being who carries the weight of the past but also transforms it, who guides others through cycles of loss, renewal, and return.
There’s a connection to labor here too, what can happen between coworkers just talking together while they are on the job. I had been working on the story when my coworker and friend, Steve Clark, encouraged me to finish it so it could be included in a Halloween storytelling event he was hosting. In the Piggery Pete story I wrote for the event there was a magical, spontaneous parade—a joyful expression of care and love that happened simply because the followers of Piggery Pete wanted to celebrate. Later, at a LEAP Friendsgiving event, we were talking about the story when my friend and LEAP founder Blase Masserant suggested we actually have the parade. So we did. The first one happened last year. This year, I made posters, the website, Piggery Pete prayer cards, we set a date—and now, people are coming.
It’s become something bigger than me, something people want to be part of. My neighbors, coworkers, and family are showing up. It’s rising out of the soil, like a kind of fairy circle. It’s a story I’ve fertilized with my own pain, hopes, fears, and critiques of local art. But it’s also something that has taken on a life of its own. I honestly think this whole thing came out of the land itself—something waiting to be remembered, revived, and reimagined.
Kevin Summers is a Garfield Township-based artist exploring themes of sustainability, speculative history, social sculpture, sound, and cultural practices. His work challenges conventional narratives and invites deeper engagement with the world through immersive experiences, sound, objects, and actions.
The Piggery Pete Parade is hosted in partnership with LEAP (Local Education & Action Partnerships)—a grassroots initiative dedicated to community building, sustainable living, mutual aid, and localization. LEAP supports projects that empower individuals and neighborhoods through collaboration, skill-sharing, and social connection.