For this edition of Off the Top, we talk with photographer Jenny Risher. Jenny is an accomplished photographer who developed her art in Detroit at the College of Creative Studies (CSS), and whose work has focused on chronicling Detroit culture.
Check out our profile below where Jenny talks about hip-hop, the differences between Detroit today and in the 1990s, and what you can learn about a person from their coney dog preferences.
The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
StockX: Jenny, I’m so glad to get the opportunity to talk with you. Would you please introduce yourself?
Jenny Risher: I’m Jenny Risher. I’m a portrait, editorial, and advertising photographer here in Detroit. I became really interested in art and a photography teacher introduced me to the College of Creative Studies (CCS) and said I should apply to the scholastic art competition. I won and that’s how I became introduced to Detroit.
I lived in New York for 17 years. I moved to New York right after college. I moved back for family and because the “D-Cyphered” exhibit took everything out of me. It was a huge undertaking and it needed to be babysat. Even when I lived in New York, I always maintained ties to Detroit.
Tell me about your projects: “Heart Soul Detroit,” and “D-Cyphered.”
In 2012 I did my first book, “Heart Soul Detroit: Conversations on the Motor City.” For me, the book was an answer to all the negative press that had been going on about the city. I got to talk to some really great people. Iggy Pop told me about the first time he stage-dived at the Granby Ballroom. I got to go to Smokey Robinson’s house and interview him. Elmore Leonard became a really good friend and I saw him a week before he passed. I met Eminem and Paul Rosenberg and the whole Shady Team through the “Heart Soul” book. Thankfully I had a good relationship with them and continued to work with them. It was because of my relationship with them that “D-Cyphered” really got its start.
I’m the last person in the world to have done a hip-hop project, but the hip-hop community was so good to me and so good to work with. Looking back, it makes sense that I was the one to do the project. I approached it very academically; I didn’t have an opinion about who should be in the exhibit. It was purely about statistics and who was in the [Detroit hip-hop] timeline.
How did “D-Cyphered” go from a small project to become a major exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)?
Nancy Barr, the co-chief curator at the DIA, asked me to submit three pictures, that turned into five pictures. Those five pictures were so successful in the DIA’s “Detroit After Dark” exhibit [photographs of Detroit nightlife]. After this, the next progression was to include art and art history, I pulled on that. I wanted to create a really cool picture of figures in Detroit hip-hop and use Detroit as the backdrop. So I used a lot of iconic landmarks and shots of the city so that anybody that came to the exhibit would get a journey through the city, through the lens of Detroit hip-hop.
I wanted to create a really cool picture of figures in Detroit hip-hop and use Detroit as the backdrop.
You went to college at CCS in Detroit in the mid-1990s. How does living in Detroit then compare to Detroit now?
Back then, my car constantly got broken into; it was literally broken into every other day on campus. There wasn’t much security like there is now.
Detroit was pretty dead. It was like an artist’s playground; you could do anything. You could walk into a train station and take pictures. You went with the idea that you were an artist and you were protected by your camera. We would go everywhere with our cameras. Looking back, I just thank God that nothing happened.
There was a lot of character in the city. The storefronts were untouched, from the 1960s through the 1980s. There are several streets of buildings and storefronts that have since been torn down, but there was a lot of character back then. But now it’s different, there’s so much opportunity here. You trade one for the other.
For young people, there are opportunities with Microsoft, Quicken, and StockX. There are stores that can exist because people shop downtown. It’s exciting to see all of this come together. It’s interesting to see what will happen with the development of the train station [Ford recently bought the abandoned Michigan Central Station] and all these beautiful hotels opening up. It’s like Brooklyn and Williamsburg.
For an artist, maybe there’s not so much opportunity anymore. But there’s MOCAD [Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit] and other galleries and museums popping up. I think you need to reevaluate your view of yourself as an artist and not rely on Detroit’s landscape anymore. The city is certainly not as photogenic as it used to be; it’s a different landscape.
My car constantly got broken into; it was literally broken into every other day on campus.
Any big nostalgia moments since moving back?
I had forgotten how much I loved Astoria Bakery and the basic coney dog, from Lafayette of course. I think if anybody said they didn’t like a coney dog I would question their credibility. There’s a whole personality test centered on the coney dog. If you don’t have onions on your coney dog, you’re probably a little too vain. If you don’t have mustard maybe you’re a non-traditionalist?
Ok, so how do you define success?
Success for me is always being able to go to the grocery store and being able to buy whatever I want. Not wanting for anything and being able to do my projects. Just the simple things: a happy family, happy kids, good education. I’m proud of what I’ve done and what I’ve accomplished.
