Detroit Is: An Essay in Photographs

Detroit Is offers a very personal depiction of an often misrepresented and maligned place. It presents multiple, diverse, contrasting aspects of the complex city. J. Gordon Rodwan's photographs show sides of the city that many people - residents and non residents alike - often miss rather than reproducing images already widely seen. They don't ignore the dilapidated parts of the city, but they don't fetishise those elements either. Instead, Rodwan juxtaposes them with images capturing efforts to cultivate and sustain creativity and vibrancy in place where too many expect to see only relics or despair. Neither 'ruin porn' nor an equally distorted boosterish presentation of only the positive, Detroit Is offers a highly individual look at what it's like to live in Detroit. Complementing the photographs are an introductory essay and poems by the photographer's son, John G. Rodwan, Jr.