Long-Forgotten Buildings
Where time stands still: Haunting beauty of abandoned mansions, shuttered asylums and deserted amusement parks across the world are caught on camera
Dutch photographer Niki
Feijen has criss-crossed the world looking for crumbling beauty lurking
beneath a thick layer of dust inside long-forgotten buildings.
Feijen,
who made headlines last year with his first self-published book of
photographs titled Disciple of Decay, is now preparing to unveil to the
world his latest project titled Frozen.
The
new book, which is being released next month at the Berliner Liste art
fair, features 184 pages of stunning interiors of abandoned mansions,
mental institutions and churches from around the world.
The most poignant and unnerving images in
the series depict rooms that look as if their inhabitants had just
left, with pillows thrown carelessly on the bed and bath towels still
hanging from a railing over a tub.
Besides
derelict old mansions ravaged by time and debris-strewn hallways,
Feijen documented some more unusual spaces for his second book.
One
image shows what appears to be a deserted old movie theater with rows
of chairs still in place and vegetation peeking through open windows.
Another
image shows a weathered roller coaster covered in a thick layer of
grime in an abandoned amusement park, where the photographer also
stumbled upon a water slide overflowing with plants and draining into a
chipped blue-tile pool filled with standing rainwater.
Feijen has made a name for himself in the art world as a photographer specializing in Urban Exploration, or Urbex for short.
Exploring decay: Dutch
photographer Niki Feijen has traversed the world looking for crumbling
beauty lurking beneath a thick layer of dust inside private bedrooms and
public buildings
Globe-trotter: For years, the Dutchman has been traveling the world looking for boarded up buildings
Sequel: Feijen is now preparing
to unveil to the world his latest project titled Frozen as a follow-up
on his self-published book Disciple of Decay
Hallowed
ground: Feijen has always been interested in religious spaces, such as
deserted chapels and small churches that haven't been in use in years
Time lapse: This image shows what appears to be a deserted old movie theater with rows of folded chairs still in place
Phantom music: The keys on this dusty old piano clearly have not been touched for many years
Delusions of grandeur: This
colonnaded ball room decked out in marble looks like it could be the
site of a grand reception, if it weren't for the gaping hole in the roof
Just push play: The feeling one gets from looking at Feijen's images is that someone had pressed the pause button on life
Sacred spaces: Feijen's ideal
shooting locations are ghost towns, insane asylums, dilapidated churches
and castles frozen in time
Journey into the past: Looking
at these image, one cannot help but think that the owners of these
personal items have just stepped out for a minute and will be right back
Water world: In his travels,
Feijen has come upon this abandoned water park with a slide draining
into an empty pool overgrown with vegetation
Ghosts of the past: A water park that was once crowded with happy children and parents has been reconquered by nature
Last stop: This roller coaster
covered in a thick layer of grime has not heard children's terrified and
joyful squeals in many years
For
years, the Dutchman has been traveling the globe looking for boarded up
buildings, decrepit chapels and family homes where everything is still
in place.
In
Frozen, one particularly unsettling and thought-provoking image shows
dusty old jackets and a woman's black leather purse hanging from hooks
in a foyer, and a pair of dirty slippers left next to a rusty bicycle
waiting for their owner to come home.
The feeling one gets from looking at Feijen’s images is that someone had pressed the pause button on life.
His ideal shooting locations are
ghost towns, long-shuttered insane asylums, dilapidated hotels and
castles frozen in time and looking like at any moment their inhabitants
will walk through the door and reclaim their personal space.
Crumbling beauty: Even though
Feijen's interiors are being eaten away by time itself, much
architectural and aesthetic beauty remains
Bleak:
Some of the shooting locations look especially gloomy, like this image
of what appears to be a deserted jail or a mental institution
Eerie: This vast bedroom still
bears the marks of its previous inhabitants, with white pillows resting
on the two single beds joint together
Cavernous: This dizzying image shows a view from the top overlooking multiple flights of concrete stairs
Worse for wear: Time has not been kind to this humble hotel room where everything is covered in moss and debris
Attention to detail: In this badly damaged bathroom towels are still hanging from a railing over a tub
While some of the interiors in Feijen’s
photos have retained an air of grandeur, like the airy colonnaded
ballroom adorned with marble, everything in sight has been touched by
decay.
In
2010, Feijen ventured into the ultimate deserted location, the
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the Ukraine, where time stopped in 1986
after a deadly nuclear accident that resulted in a rapid mass
evacuation.
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