26 August 2013
This post could also be accurately titled as “What I learned on my summer vacation” because, well, we remain children forever in a way.
I went to Detroit on what could be mistaken for a disaster tourism expedition. I saw a Caucasian man who might have been dead winched into a Port-a-Potty at an awkward angle. I ate some BBQ and saw some street art and happened upon a letterpress printer located in an old meat-processing facility near Eastern Market. (They let me use their bathroom. That was very nice of them.)
I think the city poses interesting questions about education, art, technology, industrialism and especially community. Here are some pictures of those questions. Please take them as more than ruin porn. They’re not intended as such. And, come to think of it, there’s not much in the way of ruins to be pictured in the pictures I pictured.
Implicit commentary on the fate of the record industry from the Heidelberg Project?
A photo taken near Service Street.
A friendly group of motorcyclists in front of the Motown Museum.
Chicken wings.
Wall art in Corktown, wherein resides the city’s most self-conscious gentrification vibe. Wasn’t that into it. But the BBQ restaurant was quite good.
Co-ops designed by Mies Van Der Rohe in LaFayette Park.
Here is a very short reading list of materials I read before and just after I went. I found them all helpful.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Detroit, Disaster Tourism, Ethics, Grace Lee Boggs, Mark Binelli, Photos, Robert Shetterly, Ruin Porn, The Community Function, The Problem with Capitalism, The Problem With Nostalgia, The Problem with Technology