Steve Shaw in Conversation with Timothy Hill at MOCAD

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Steve Shaw in conversation with Timothy Hill of the Hill Gallery
Saturday, February 6
Born and raised in Detroit, photographer Steve Shaw was gifted a camera at age ten. Using this tool to highlight details often dismissed or invisible in the blur of daily life, Shaw photographed people he worked with or encountered on the street, including many World War II refugees and people who had moved to Detroit from the South in the Great Migration. A student of Bill Rauhauser, who dedicated his career to Detroit street photography since the 1940s, Shaw was influenced by images of the conflict in Vietnam, protest, civil unrest, and similar events happening in Detroit. Although Shaw's work often captures people in the vortex of economic downturn, the picture it offers of the human spirit remains overwhelmingly positive.

As a place where, in some sense, the Great Depression never ended, Detroit is a perfect setting for this kind of work. It is the home of the American automotive industry, and the symbolic center of its 2008 collapse. Steve Shaw was born and raised here, and in his many years living and working in the city, he has found that it offers all the source material he needs. He claims, "I have never had trouble finding inspiration living in Detroit."

Detroit Speaks is sponsored in part by a grant from the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.