Post #1

Hey all,
I lived part-time in Michigan for over 2 years and spent a bunch of time in the 313 area.  I love Detroit because it's real and visceral and has no pretense of being a "cool" city. It is what it is. This often means that it's a tough place. Physically and emotionally. Detroit broods and when you live there you can't help but be affected by it. It is really unlike anywhere else and offers a starkly revealing picture of all that is wrong with post-industrial America. Through the rubble and the fear, however there is something fascinating that seems to be happening; or is about to happen.

Detroit offers an opportunity to exercise some ideas on urban thinking and social anthropology that would never be possible in another city. The city has "tipped" over to a point where regular urban gentrification is no longer possible. There is simply too much space, too few people, not enough money and jobs and too much decay and abandonment to try and repair things. People are beaten down.

Only radical and inventive measures can change the city. New approaches to impossible circumstances means that Detroit can be the proving grounds for new urban thinking; much the same way it was for the automotive manufacturing that built the city in the first place.

The "Prairie and Pavement" project will consist of a few different photography and documentary projects. Some work on the current urban environment; portraits of 313'rs and some photographs of the people and ideas that are trying to change the city. Come back often!