Making Home in Detroit

“Making Home” by photographer Corine Vermeulen en Christian Ernsten was part of the “Off the grid” exhibition at the Nutshuis in the Hague from 7 May – 28 June 2013.

Detroit often figured as an exemplary place – it has been the Motor City, the world’s showcase industrial city. It was the city of the civil rights struggle in the 1960s and more recently it was the exemplary shrinking city. Currently, Detroit is seen as the city of creative opportunity. This project by Corine Vermeulen and Christian Ernsten focuses on the intimacies of Detroit. On what appears to be ordinary, but which in fact represents the places of dreams, desires and feelings of fear and nostalgia.

The “Making Home” project at the Nutshuis portrayed the art of making home in Detroit. Corine and Christian visited the homes of inhabitants: friends, neighbours and others. The project shows Detroit as a radical different urban settlement, without reaffirming its well-known state of devastation. Instead it uses the home as a frame for looking at creative examples of dwelling. It Portrays those who chose Detroit as a lifestyle, as well as those who grew up in the city and can’t live without it, and also those who struggle to get by.