Toward a Rust Belt Poetics: Ruins and Everyday Life in Visual Art from the Deindustrialised U.S. Midwest

Abstract

This article examines a variety of visual art emerging from and about the American Rust Belt. Through an analysis of photography collections and gallery installations, it is argued that artistic projects interpret the ruins of the Rust Belt in competing ways, and much of this contestation occurs through a discourse about everyday life. A distinction is developed between a poetics developed from the ruins of space and the ruins in place. Ultimately, what’s at stake in these visual poetics of the Rust Belt is a claim on the region’s future, claims that are often invested with hope.