Detroit, just a two-hour plane ride from New York City, has long been considered an affordable cultural habitat for artists looking for new opportunities and affordable living. Dutch artist Corine Vermeulen left her native Amsterdam and moved to Detroit in 2006 to set up her studio. The Detroit-based photographer Corine Vermeulen has launched a Kickstarter to produce a photo book of portraits and landscapes celebrating day-to-day life in Detroit, capturing a strong community in the midst of a challenging transition. Entitled Your Town Tomorrow, the book is slated to be published in December, 2018.
Known for both economic turmoil and new opportunity, very few take a closer look at what makes Detroit great – the people. Vermeulen hopes her book will convey how essential Detroit’s resilient citizens are to their city’s cultural vitality. Vermeulen has chronicled her life and work in Detroit for more than a decade: the communities she has lived in, her friends and neighbors, strangers on the street. Your Town Tomorrow is a portrait of all these people and places.
Vermeulen’s book also reacts against the portrayal of Detroit as an abandoned city, full of industrial ruins. Instead, she hopes to shed new light on neighborhood organizations and activism and contribute to their visibility. Vermeulen began the Your Town Tomorrow series in 2008 by photographing community gardens and urban farms that help create a communal support system that addresses food security. From then on, the series has centered on these people and their work as they revitalize and rebuild the city from the ground up.
Vermeulen stated, “Although documentary in format, it is also a very personal series to me as it chronicles my life and work in Detroit, the communities where I lived, and a lot of my friends and neighbors. After ten years of photographing, I’m ready to publish a book of these images, and with your support, I can make this happen.”
Vermeulen has already exceeded her $10,000 goal, which will cover the cost of hiring an oral historian to interview the people featured in the book as well as securing a designer to create the book’s final layout.
To support Your Town Tomorrow (Detroit, 2007-2017), click here.
images // courtesy of the artist
