Urbex I
Urbex I by Ben Schreck. Don’t miss Urbex II and Urbex III.
abandoned architecture
Abandoned Railways Exploration Probe
Mexican artists Ivan Puig and Andrés Padilla Domene, also known as Los Ferronautas, built a self-made rail vehicle (which could also travel by road) to explore abandoned passenger railways of Mexico and Ecuador. Between 2010 and 2012, they both travelled across the two countries in the so-called SEFT-1 (Sonda de Exploración Ferroviaria Tripulada) uncovering hundreds of modern ruins. Altogether, they drove almost 9,000 kilometres collecting stories, film footage and audio surrounding railways that had been abandoned since 1995, when Mexico privatized their rail system. In their first London exhibition, SEFT-1 Abandoned Railways Exploration Probe – Modern Ruins 1:220, commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and presented in partnership with Furtherfield Gallery, the artists explore how the ideology of progress is imprinted onto historic landscapes and reflect on the two poles of the social experience of technology – use and obsolescence. Watch this video to find out more.
All images Ivan Puig and Andrés Padilla Domene, SEFT-1 Abandoned Railways Exploration Probe – Modern Ruins 1:220.
The Collapse of the American Shopping Mall
The Collapse of the American Shopping Mall by Seph Lawless – a haunting documentary photo series about broken store windows, ceiling panels fall out of their frames, dried flower beds and other torn down mall interiors. Shopping malls, the commercial anchors of the U.S. suburbs, are going dark.
All images © Seph Lawless.
Lawless‘ photos of abandoned shopping malls are collected in a book, Black Friday – The collapse of the American shopping Mall, Artivist Publishing (2014). Check out his work here.
Abandoned Olympic Venues
What happens to Olympic facilities after the games are over? Some are turned into training facilities, theaters, concert halls, museums and so on. But many of them are abandoned. Check out this great series of 30 haunting images from past Summer and Winter Olympics which now lie abandoned and overgrown.
Athens 2004 Summer Olympics
Diving pool at the Aquatic Center
Field Hockey Stadium
Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics
Mount Igman Ski Jump
Overgrown Bobsled Track
Helsinki 1952 Summer Olympics
Main Swimming Stadium
Main Swimming Stadium
The People’s Trust
Disused theatres and movie palaces, record stores and book shops are among the most ordinary closed and abandoned buildings you can expect. The bank’s business is quite simply not the same as the high risk of investing in culture – it behaves quite differently. Nevertheless, banks are taking significant steps to follow their lead. The People’s Trust by Michael Vahrenwald looks at how US bank buildings have been repurposed.
Cicero Trust and Savings Bank, Cicero, IL, 2012
Greenwich Savings Bank, New York, NY 2013
Detroit Savings Bank 2, Detroit, MI 2012
All images © Michael Vahrenwald.
Getty Station
A really exceptional art space has opened in the middle of Chelsea on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan a while ago. Gallerist and art collector Michael Shvo bought an abandoned gas station where he has installed a temporary art exhibition. »Kids don’t really see sheep in the middle of New York at a gas station,« Shvo said and picked up Francois-Xavier Lalanne’s sheep sculptures. The installation is one of many planned artworks that will appear in the location before Shvo finishes constructing a luxury building in place of the former gas station. Business as usual what we might call.
All images © collabcubed.
Empty Chairs
Abandoned buildings, private apartments and junk rooms – Each setting photographer Faisal Al Fouzan from Kuwait has photographed was found like you can see below and left untouched, preserving the authenticity of the chaotic ensemble. »The Empty Chairs project aims to capture the different scenery in which empty chairs are discovered in visually surreal or out of the ordinary environments. Through these images I examine the relationship between the empty chair and it’s surrounding. Each image tells a story, where the chair is the narrator and protagonist, speaking of its past inhabitant and its context.«
All images © Faisal Al Fouzan 2013. (via)