Yesterday we finally went and explored the old warehouse that backs on to the alley behind our house. We have always wondered whats inside its beautiful old brick interior and the newly open door hanging off its hinges finally enticed us in. I would have been in total bliss finding this place when I was studying textiles at art school at a time when I was quite enamored with abandoned spaces (The Empty Show).  The first room we wade through is a musty thread soup, opening up into a vast area of dusty machines, boxes spilling thread, spikey implements, and graffiti practice.

Below is the work of some photographers whose evocative images document the beauty and melancholy of abandoned places.

David Maisel

http://www.davidmaisel.com

Library of Dust

2005 — 2006

“. . . these canisters hold the cremated remains of patients from an American psychiatric hospital. Oddly reminiscent of bullet casings, the canisters are literal gravesites. Reacting with their ash inhabitants, the canisters are now blooming with secondary minerals, articulating new metallic landscapes.”

— Geoff Manaugh, Contemporary

Edward Burtynsky

http://www.edwardburtynsky.com

‘The city of Shenyang, located in China’s northeast Tiexi District, was until very recently China’s industrial backbone and home to the most densely focused concentration of heavy industry.’

Kevin Bauman

http://www.kevinbauman.com

100 Abandoned Houses

‘The abandoned houses project began innocently enough roughly ten years ago. I actually began photographing abandonment in Detroit in the mid 90’s as a creative outlet, and as a way of satisfying my curiosity with the state of my home town. I had always found it to be amazing, depressing, and perplexing that a once great city could find itself in such great distress, all the while surrounded by such affluence.’

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre

http://www.marchandmeffre.com

‘Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies
and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.’