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SHIPWRECKS is an ongoing photo series documenting the preponderance of abandoned boats, forlorn vessels, orphaned vehicles, and stranded objects found, and often illegally dumped, throughout Detroit. I’ve been photographing this very Detroit phenomenon for over twenty-two years, and the endless cycle of boats-on-streets never seems to end. Colloquially known as Detroit Shipwrecks, Trashboats, and Landboats, the act of abandoning any large waste materials around the desolate streets of the city has been going on for decades—in large part because there has rarely been any enforcement or consequences for the perpetrators. Old, broken-down boats have zero scrap value, and typically cost hundreds of dollars to dispose of properly, due to the size, weight, toxicity of engine oils and fuel lines, and the disposal processes for fiberglass. In Detroit, dumping boaters prefer to tow their skiffs to dead-end streets in the wee hours, moor them to utility poles (land pilings), yank them off of their trailers and drive away, running them aground, like shipwrecks on concrete islands. Like many of my Detroit-based photo series, I began capturing images of these wrecks because I saw them as a uniquely Detroit occurrence, and one that would probably vanish over time. There is something oddly po- etic about seeing abandoned boats on abandoned streets, in a former rivertown, turned autotown, turned neither. Yet, after two decades of shooting, the endless well of dumping old pleasure-boats on vacant streets continues to this day. |
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