Dream Home

Detroit, MI

Dream Home is a 2012 documentation of abandoned homes in the Poletown neighborhood — Detroit, Michigan.

Poletown was originally named after the thousands of Polish immigrants who originally lived in the area, in search of work in nearby auto plants and/or slaughterhouses.  The landscape of Poletown changed dramatically in 1981, when the city of Detroit forcefully relocated 4,200 residents to allow for the construction of the General Motors Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly Plant.

“The great property demise throughout Detroit in the post-industrial era has been highly documented — and the visual presence of razed homes throughout the city stand as the blighted stretch marks, in an iconic American city”

While many of the neighborhoods of Detroit can be characterized by abandonment, decay or disrepair, Poletown is dominated by the memories of its occupation and the burned/abandoned remnants of its single-family homes.