Rebekah Modrak Profiled by U-M News Service
In a feature profile by the U‑M News Service, Stamps Professor Rebekah Modrak discusses her work and how family values passed down from her father, a pro-union firefighter in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, started a life-long investigation into the intersections between power, labor, and consumerism.
Modrak’s creative work often uses the trappings of commerce and merchandizing to illustrate how representation can evoke power. In her recent web-based project, titled “Rethink Shinola,” Modrak observes that Shinola — a Detroit-based company that produces luxury products — used images of black assembly line workers in their marketing. These shots were juxtaposed against photos of the company’s white leadership without work smocks, creating a public narrative centered on how white people were supposedly saving Detroit.
Modrak’s work “Rethink Shinola” is part of “Border Control: Traversing Horizons in Media Practice,” an exhibition on view at the U‑M Stamps Gallery (201 Division St., Ann Arbor) until Nov. 10. The Stamps Gallery is free and open to the public Tuesday-Sunday.