By Clare Pfeiffer, IXITI.com
DETROIT, MI – A high school curiosity about Detroit’s ruins sparked what has become a passion for the city and its creative community for photographer Vanessa Miller, one of nine photographers showing in an exhibition opening at the Detroit Artists Market this week.
Like many others, Miller, 29, spent several years spelunking through decrepit buildings, taking photos and finding beauty in the decay. “Shooting the ruins for me was more in a scientific way, being very aware that I’m not the only person who finds that fascinating,” says Miller, 29, who grew up in St Clair Shores but has lived in the city for 12 years. That eventually became “The Ruins of Detroit Project,” which has been shown at Scarab Club, Wayne State, among other places. “It was a good starting point for learning the city’s histories and moving forward,” she says.
After moving to the city to attend Wayne State, she connected with other people making art, creating and doing interesting things in Detroit. Over time, she says, her work has become focused more on the people of the city. “From living down here and being part of the community, I just kind of started noticing more interesting things people are doing,” she says. And those kinds of images are what she’s showing at DAM this week.
The 313 show
Miller is honored and excited to be part of the “313 Photography Exhibition,” which honors Detroits 313th birthday and opens Friday, June 6, 2014. The DAM show also features the work of Carlos Diaz, Bruce Giffin, Scott Hocking, Oscar Hoff, Ali Elisabeth Lapetina, Bill Rauhauser, Bill Schwab and Tom Stoye.
Rauhauser, 95, is a legend among local photographers — having been given the Kresge Eminent Award designation in 2014, he’s been called the patriarch of Detroit photography.
“I’m super excited about this show because my idols are in it,” says Miller, who works by day at College for Create Studies as a digital image archivist. “Tom Stoye has been one of my mentors. And Bill Rauhauser, the fact that I’m showing next him is amazing. He’s always been one of my favorite iconic Detroit photographers. It’s such an amazing group.”
There are several other mentor-mentees in the show, says Matt Fry, director of DAM — namely, Rauhauser mentored Stoye, and Diaz mentored Lapentina. “That’s the kind of lineage that’s represented in the show,” he says. “No single show is going to capture all of Detroit. That said we have 9 artists, and within that there is this amazing variety. Maybe my favorite thing about the Detroit Aritsts Market is that we show up-and-coming artists right next to extablished artists.”
The photos in the show hit many Detroit themes: car culture, immigration and diversity, urban agriculture, and notable city architecture. The uplifting works come from Detroit’s past and present. The Diaz series, “Unknown Landmarks,” was last shown 26 years ago at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota, Colombia.
Miller’s work, on the other, hand features current images from Detroit, and includes some of her newer photography never shown before. She showing 11 images at DAM, and they tell a story of her Detroit experiences. “They’re all kind of small, and eventually I want it to be a book,” she says. “It’s friends, it’s people from CAMP Detroit — artists, musicians, portraits of groups. It’s always through my lens — definitely through my lens.”