LI MILLER // Seeing Through The Emerald City



Seeing Through The Emerald City


“Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.” (Stephen Sondheim).

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” (Dr. Suess)

Initially, I began making this work as a reaction to Detroit’s “coming back” as hacking away its own history and future. However, I came to realize this body of work wasn’t just my view of “New” Detroit, and being an artist here, but a reaction to my frustrations with the values placed on creativity, craft, and preservation in our culture as a whole. What’s the point of “making your mark,” or, even making, if it’s only there to be written over again? The current state of things in Detroit, and its (poor) history with its own history, is a microcosm of a much bigger discussion, especially in America. This is very much my way trying to make some sense of the way I see things, as I not only shot but, directed, styled, lit, did wigs/hair/most of the makeup myself.

Though I’ve lived in Detroit for five years, as well as seen many a “ruin porn” image of the theatre-turned-parking-garage, I’d still never been inside the infamous Michigan Building until earlier this year. I was not in awe of the “grand” dilapidation of it all. I was just angry. I was angry at the waste—of time, of materials, of history. It was a space made of art to display art, and now, entirely utilitarian. However, in light of recent 2020 events, it seems the arts, whether entertainment or crafting, are in fact a utility. I’m inspired by many of the historic buildings that are so uniquely Detroit because of the experience these spaces hold, growing up on stories from my grandmother about the EXPERIENCE that was Downtown shopping at Hudson’s (and skipping school to see 1939’s Gone with The Wind in Detroit). This shaped my way of seeing, and, specifically, instilled an appreciation for Detroit’s unique design, its history, and, to see patterns in the past to maybe make a better, more informed future—one to be built up instead of bulldozed for surface lots (here’s lookin’ at you, Ilitches/The District). Removing that experience and craft is removing the human experience.

As an artist in general, it feels extremely disheartening to see so much design, history, craft, and knowledge go to waste—if money equals value, that says a lot. As a female creative in Detroit, I especially feel this. Studying design and fashion history, the fact that Detroit took the route of industry over the arts, the auto industry rising at the same time as Pewabic and The Society of Arts and Crafts (the predecessor to College for Creative Studies), it’s clear which came out on top. It’s clear too, in 2020, just how important hand-craft and creativity is. The models pictured here are as much a subject as the  homes and public arts spaces. Old Detroit’s unique design and special kind of inspiration are encapsulated in these spaces, the less corporate side of New Detroit in the models. Spaces that are disappearing, artists who are being displaced and disvalued by the city that inspired them. The models are all Detroit-area Creatives from varying disciplines, wearing full vintage (or direct recreation of) from the 1890s-1940s (maximized quality and minimized styling waste, the majority of the clothing sourced locally or through small online sellers.). The looks are somewhere between ‘30s Beaton and self-expression—stylized to-era, with the models sporting modern hair colors, tattoos, and piercings, as seen through the lens as a female creative.

This “picture show” is equally memento vivere and memento mori of a non-future-present-past…without waxing nostalgia; a sort of simultaneous mourning and stand for something better; It’s about holding onto the anti-erasure of places, of thought, of the human element, of time (past and future) for a short-sighted present.  At a pivotal time in history, all this has been brought to the surface. It’s not about making less, it’s about making better, it’s about making sensically instead of senseless waste. It’s about caring about ourselves, about others, about our world, about our intentions, about being human. We can do better, we have to.

www.limillerphoto.com