"Ruin Porn and Urban Representation in Photography: The Aesthetics and Politics of Appropriation in The Ruins of Detroit" - by: Elyse Remenapp
Abstract:
In this project, Elyse Remenapp examines the politics of representation in The Ruins of Detroit, a book of photography by Yves Marchand and Romaine Meffre, in order to understand Detroit as a privileged site of ruins photography, critically referred to as ruin porn. Examining the book as a representation of Detroit’s decay, argues Remenapp, reveals an implicit power dynamic which neglects Detroit’s complex history and the lived experience of its residents. Paying particular attention to the dialectic of race and labor under capitalism, she traces the modern urban history of Detroit in order to contextualize and reframe the state of ruin presented in the photographs. The project argues that Marchand and Meffre’s work appropriates Detroit’s state of crisis and decay for aesthetic consumption through a process of exploitation of Detroit ruin as a space, while simultaneously erasing Detroit’s actual residents from this spatial representation altogether.
