The Psychology of Ruin Porn
JoAnn Greco
It's the sort of image, imbued with loss and layers, that architecture buffs drool over. A wheelchair sits center stage, its orange vinyl back echoed by a round tabletop that leans against a wall, painted in a familiar shade of institutional green. A mattress, flattened and grimy, lies tossed onto a floor that's littered with fallen plaster. In the foreground, an overturned metal trashcan speaks volumes. A mirror reflects the whole sad scene.It's romantic, it's nostalgic, it's wistful, it's provocative. It's about time, nature, mortality, disinvestment.
Pursuing and photographing the old is an addictive hobby. Dozens of blogs and online galleries share strategies for entry and showcase ever-bulging collections of moss-covered factory floors and lathe-exposed school buildings.
There's no shortage of theories as to just why these images (in this case, a long-shuttered mental asylum) fascinate us. They "offer an escape from excessive order," says Tim Edensor, a professor of geography at Manchester Metropolitan University who studies the appeal of urban ruins. "They're marginal spaces filled with old and obscure objects. You can see and feel things that you can't in the ordinary world."
Matthew Christopher, the man who snapped the photograph described above, it was — at least in the beginning — more about curiosity. Only as he stood amid the eerily silent hallways and peeling ceilings of a similarly crumbling institution did he truly understand its role in the history of mental health.
Christopher became so intrigued with that first experience ten years ago that he switched from studying mental health to photography, eventually shooting some 300 abandoned asylums, schools, and factories.
Now, Christopher has his own portfolio in the form of a website, abandonedamerica.us (subtitled "an autopsy of the American dream"), and he's studying fine art photography at Rochester Institute of Technology.
As part of a disparate cadre of urbanists who have embarked on the road to ruins, he's opened himself to some flack.
All photos courtesy of Matthew Christopher.
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JoAnn Greco
It's the sort of image, imbued with loss and layers, that architecture buffs drool over. A wheelchair sits center stage, its orange vinyl back echoed by a round tabletop that leans against a wall, painted in a familiar shade of institutional green. A mattress, flattened and grimy, lies tossed onto a floor that's littered with fallen plaster. In the foreground, an overturned metal trashcan speaks volumes. A mirror reflects the whole sad scene.It's romantic, it's nostalgic, it's wistful, it's provocative. It's about time, nature, mortality, disinvestment.
Pursuing and photographing the old is an addictive hobby. Dozens of blogs and online galleries share strategies for entry and showcase ever-bulging collections of moss-covered factory floors and lathe-exposed school buildings.
There's no shortage of theories as to just why these images (in this case, a long-shuttered mental asylum) fascinate us. They "offer an escape from excessive order," says Tim Edensor, a professor of geography at Manchester Metropolitan University who studies the appeal of urban ruins. "They're marginal spaces filled with old and obscure objects. You can see and feel things that you can't in the ordinary world."
Matthew Christopher, the man who snapped the photograph described above, it was — at least in the beginning — more about curiosity. Only as he stood amid the eerily silent hallways and peeling ceilings of a similarly crumbling institution did he truly understand its role in the history of mental health.
Christopher became so intrigued with that first experience ten years ago that he switched from studying mental health to photography, eventually shooting some 300 abandoned asylums, schools, and factories.
Now, Christopher has his own portfolio in the form of a website, abandonedamerica.us (subtitled "an autopsy of the American dream"), and he's studying fine art photography at Rochester Institute of Technology.
As part of a disparate cadre of urbanists who have embarked on the road to ruins, he's opened himself to some flack.
All photos courtesy of Matthew Christopher.
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