In the mid-’90s, photographer and scholar Camilo Jose Vergara proposed preserving the vacant skyscrapers of once-great downtown Detroit as a ruins park. He called it “An American Acropolis.” The locals called it bunk.
As a symbol of the U.S. economy in general, even before the crash of 2008, Motor City has been the subject of much “ruin porn” – photography that fetishizes urban decay.
“The portrayal Detroiters are used to seeing – crumbling buildings with no people to be seen – is frustrating because they know their city is more than that,” says Detroit photographer Brian Widdis. “Nobody here denies that those things are real, but seeing the city portrayed one-dimensionally – time and again – it’s like hearing the same awful song being played over and over on the radio. Detroiters want to hear a different song once in a while.”
While images of a Detroit-in-bits may be photogenic, and tourists are undeniably still drawn to the decay, for the most part our consumption of collapsing buildings is fleeting, disconnected – gratification on the cheap.
Widdis and Romain Blanquart, another Detroit photographer, think there are other tales to be told. They characterize images of Detroit without people as “soulless.” Four years ago, they began collaborating on Can’t Forget Motor City, a project to focus on the people of Detroit, themes of home and family, how people live and relate to their city.
Detroit Disassembled by Andrew Moore and The Ruins of Detroit by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre are two of the most well-known photography projects to bask in glorious dilapidation. Sean Doerr made photographs for Dan Austin’s book Lost Detroit, mining the stories behind the city’s “majestic ruins.” You don’t have to search for long on Flickr to find images either.
Ruin porn worships the 33,000 empty houses and 91,000 vacant lots of Detroit and overlooks the 700,000+ residents. It doesn’t come close to describing the city.
“I still do not understand her. The complexity of Detroit makes many give up, move out or move on, if they can. But for others, we want to further that relationship with her,” says Blanquart.
In some ways, Widdis and Blanquart are an unlikely partnership; their photographic styles are quite different, most obviously in that Widdis shoots black and white and Blanquart shoots color. Blanquart, who grew up in Tahiti, France and Italy, moved to Detroit 10 years ago in search of work. He landed a staff position with the Detroit Free Press, set down roots and now concludes he’ll be in Detroit for life. Detroit-born, Widdis moved away as a young boy and only returned recently.
“Within our own histories, there are issues of native vs. non-native and resident vs. outsider,” says Widdis. “We’re also two white guys talking about a city that is over 80% black. So of course, being both insiders and outsiders creates a contradiction that informs our perspective.”
The pair do not claim to encapsulate Detroit with their project, but simply outline a part of it they think has been invisible. Can’t Forget Motor City is about relationships in real life and relationships between images.
“We’re constructing the story through the sequencing of the photos and relationships suggested between the singles and diptychs,” says Widdis.
The project not only avoids predictable and sensational images of a city in decay, but also simplistic and overly positive images. Widdis and Blanquart have found that photographs of utter normality are the best counter to negative, shallow depictions of Detroit.
“Yes, there are empty houses and factories and yes, there are urban farmers with conviction and energy. But on a day-to-day basis, most citizens are barely affected by either of those extremes,” says Widdis
While a book of the project would “make sense,” the photographers are in no rush. Commentary on Detroit and photography has crescendoed in the past couple of years, but that could actually diminish its relevance or reception.
“Detroit is close to bankruptcy, unemployment is stubbornly high, and a shrinking tax base has left the city struggling to provide basic services. There’s a plan to turn off the power to half of the city’s streetlights! So it’s not surprising that in 2012, four years after the auto bailout, housing bubble, and countless news stories about ‘The Ruins of Detroit’ (or its opposite ‘Detroit is Actually Not That Bad’), a kind of ‘Detroit Project’ fatigue has set in,” says Widdis
Ultimately, Can’t Forget Motor City is a project built upon the awareness of photography’s boundaries.
“Mostly people are too busy living their lives to care too much about photography projects – ours or anyone else’s. Photographs don’t fix infrastructure or give people jobs, so our project flies pretty well under the radar,” says Widdis.
Blanquart and Widdis are just trying to do their bit.
“Detroit is not a tragedy. We attempt to show its humanity,” adds Blanquart.
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Recommended reading and listening:
Detroitism, John Patrick Leary, January 15, 2011
Art vs. Ruin Porn, Jennifer Guerra, Michigan Radio, January 12, 2011.
Detroit in Ruins, David Walsh, May 5th. 1997.
A Tribute to Ruins Irks Detroit, James Bennett, New York Times, December 10, 1995.
Artists in Residence, Linda Yablonsky, September 22, 2010.
