So we've always had this fascination with Detroit. It's a strange one - something about the derelict suburbs, urban exploration and all the complete decline of population, leaving decay upon the city.
We posted a while ago, these images that were discovered from Cass Tech High School, detailing the dramatic effect the economy had on this construction and essentially demolished the school, leaving ghostly outlines of adolescence. The images circulated wildly on the internet, promoting those of adventurous souls to capture and document the city and it's terrible rot into the 21st century.
We watched Lost River the other night too, Ryan Goslings directing debut with a smashing cast and dreamy Drive-esque soundtrack from Chromatics. Listen, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Anyway the film is too realistic to some worlds and it encounters this suburban neighbourhood, on the edge of being 'damned' into a lost river. The citizens have moved away, there are no jobs and the slightly Twin Peakness of it all has hit the roof and next thing you know, Eva Mendes is showcasing some fetish-feline act towards the big city players, which hauntingly echo's that of the Laura Palmer theory behind those red curtains. It's pretty much like a sweaty nightmare - you know. Plus Matt Smith's in it too and performs a pretty shocking opposition to his well known Dr Who role (we didn't believe it was him, IMDB'ing instantly took place to clarify).
So this fictional town, demolished and brutalized by society recalled all this research from Detroit. Now they say Detroit is on the up again, though almost 30% of it's current population are still unemployed. The 19th century, 8 bed mansions, dusty swimming pools and boarded up 7/11's can be revived once again, but it doesn't stop one thinking of the exploration and the deterioration that caused this once, vibrant city.
Detroit was the hub of the motor industry back in the early 1900's thanks to the foundation of Ford and it's manufacturing and growth of industrial employment. It was known as the 'Paris of the mid-west' and was just booming with life, tourism and bussle. The city now hosts over 78,000 abandoned buildings after it's great depression and it's slowly taking off the band-aids to a rebounded, re-structured type of civilization.
A while back we stumbled across photographer Philip Jarmain who's subject of 'American Beauty' heavily focuses on the decline of Detroit and it's aftermath of destruction. Jarmain states:
“These are the last large format architectural photographs for many of these structures.”
Could the landscape of Detroit relish with the tourism from these ruins? This is an ongoing project, more to come.
Words - Anna Jenkins
Images - Philip Jarmain & visual from Lost River, c/o The Film Stage.
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