It’s been a full year since we’ve first pointed you to Yves Marchand’s and Romain Meffre’s fantastic photographs from the ruins of Detroit. About two weeks ago the british Guardian ran a great story about their work and their book “The Ruins of Detroit” (amazon affiliate link), including an image gallery with a number of photos that haven’t been seen online before. You should check them out!
These are absolutely worth reading and especially seeing! Beautiful photographs that hint at numerous and unfortunately sad stories from the urban America of the 20th century.
Here’s a captivating blog by Steven Hirsch: Crustypunks. Pictures of and interviews with homeless punks he met at Tompkins Square Park, East Village, New York. Snip from Wikipedia: “Crusties is a term for members of an urban subculture, with roots in punk and grebo. The term pre-dates crust punk and can be used independently. The trend was most widespread in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s but there are also international subsets[1]. Crusties are noted for their unkempt appearance and are associated with road protests, squatting, raves and begging.”
Flipping through the blog you’ll hear life stories like this one:
I’m a product of the American foster care system. My mom’s a Czechoslovakian whore and my dad was a sand nigger. His name was Ahmad something or other. I grew up in the foster care system till I was three. So I woke up one day and I was fucking fifteen years old, ran away from the fucking group home. Decided it was in my best interests to become a crack head on the streets. And spent the last two years losing my mind in Oklahoma City. – Ketchup
Or this one:
I’m also a vampire. I was born and raised into vampirism. I was thrown out at a early young age from my family and everything by some wicked church people, satan worshippers or something. All I remember is I’ve been into it since I was born. I speak about eleven or twelve languages when I’m drinking. Not really right now. With the cancer setting in right now because of the heat and everything, just kinda like can’t think right now. Doing my own chemo. And I got a prescription for it, somewhere here in Manhattan. I just gotta go pick it up, if I could remember where the address is. I’m thirty seven. I’m not crazy. I’m not insane. I’m not stupid. – Jeremy
For more of these exciting portraits head on over to Crustypunks…
American Ruins in 3D! That sounds almost like a scene from THE AMERICAN BACKROOM… or rather like a photo project by Matt Bergstrom. He’s creating three View-Master Sets of abandoned buildings in decay.
“American Ruins” is a three-dimensional, photographic series exploring unusual, abandoned buildings — like a candy factory! — to be viewed on an old-fashioned View-Master. Both an exploration of architectural history and a fun throwback to childhood, backers will receive their very own View-Master viewer and a complete set of reels!
Matt needs a little financial support to get things started so he launched his project on Kickstarter: American Ruins in 3D! How cool is that. Definitely worth our support. Click the image below to check it out:
The ruins of Detroit and the downfall of what once was America’s fourth largest city are definitely one of the most fascinating aspects of the “other America” – and have been a topic on this blog severaltimes before. In the latest chapter of Detroits videography, a shoe company sent Jackass-frontman Johnny Knoxville to Detroit. Not to mock it Jackass-style, but to visit the local art scene that is flourishing between overgrown façades and abandoned shopping malls – adding just another new aspect to the whole Detroit-story. The end result is the urban explorer-style documentary “Detroit Lives!”. Below you will find a trailer and part 1 of the full-length documentary, hit the jump for parts 2 and 3.
What if tomorrow everyone’s car just disappeard? That was the question that Ross Ching asked himself. As an answer he came up with the following video in which he got rid of all the cars in L.A.. It’s the city of 12-lane-superhighways without the cars. Without the trucks. Without any motorized vehicle… Take a look.
New York based filmmaker Malcolm Murray takes a close look at the fading tradition of handpainted advertising. A short documentary that is so beautifully shot and heartwarmingly told that you can hardly hold back tears. A little slice of life that we are rarely aware of. Take a look.
You are about to witness the exciting story of a city and its people. It will be an adventure that will open new sights in familiar surroundings. That city is Detroit. Home of nearly two million people.
Proud words that open the documentary “Requiem For Detroit” by Julian Temple, commissioned by the BBC. Words that stem from an old promotional film, spoken by one of Detroit’s former mayors. What Julian Temple does with these words and the corresponding image is so simple, yet powerful that I got goosebumps running down my spine. He took that old promotional film and projected it onto decaying ruins of Detroit’s inner city and had the voice of the former mayor echo through empty windows and abandoned hallways. A technique he utilizes more than once during the 75 minutes of this fantastic documentary. Temple talks to artists, poets, urban explorers and many others that lead him through decaying urban landscapes, telling about the rise and fall of what was once one of the most influential cities of the Industrial Age. Julian Temple says:
Detroit was the frontier city in the US, powering the American dream. What I find fascinating is the fact that it is still ahead of the game, becoming the first big US city to virtually fall off the map.
A Must-Watch! Right now right here. Hurry now, before YouTube takes it down.
Keith Davis Young is a young designer and photographer from Austin, TX, and I just finished clicking through his flickr set bearing the rather inconspicous title 35mm. I had starry eyes. He captured a fantastic set of impressions and fragments of daily life. RVs, parking lots, diners and restaurants, people, furniture, all kinds of moods. Go take a look!
Check out D.I.Y. America, a documentary webseries on US subcultures from the creators of the film Beautiful Losers covering two decades of skateboarding, graffiti, punk and the hip hop movement. Interviewees include Ian MacKaye, Shepard Fairey, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Glen Friedman oder Tony Hawk.
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