Date of Award
Spring 5-15-2015
Degree Type
Capstone Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies (BA)
Department
Cultural Studies
First Advisor
Jaafar Aksikas
Abstract
This project 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 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, this project traces the urban history of Detroit in order to contextualize and reframe the state of ruin presented in the photographs. This 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 almost erasing Detroit's actual residents from this spatial representation altogether.
Recommended Citation
Remenapp, Elyse, "Ruin Porn and Urban Representation in Photography: The Aesthetic and Politics of Appropriation in "The Ruins of Detroit"" (2015). Cultural Studies Capstone Papers. 12.
https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cultural_studies/12
Included in
American Material Culture Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Cultural History Commons, Labor Economics Commons, Other History Commons, Photography Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons