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Shifted Priorities

Pigmented Inkjet Print
2016

Close Up:

The Belle Isle Zoo has an interesting history, one that reveals a constructed natural environment that housed a variety of animals not native to Detroit, to this region. Due to financial constraints over the past decades, the Belle Isle Zoo closed its doors, moved many of their animals to the Detroit Zoo and relocated down the street to a smaller, more manageable site on the same island that is at this point, run by the Michigan Parks and Recreation Department. The original site of the Belle Isle Zoo was left untouched for many years (except for people like me and graffiti artists trespassing in), allowing this constructed natural environment to be overgrown and adapt to the buildings that still look fairly new, a wooden view deck becoming a weakened structure, new homes to other forms of life that figured out a way to work with what they have.