Observatory
543 Union Street
This event has passed.
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Photo: Still from Stages of Decay by Julia Solis
- When
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Thursday Mar 25, 2010 (8pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$5
“Ruins can be eerily picturesque. After all, they are ghostly, outsize reminders of industry and inhabitation by those long gone. Tonight should be full of discovery, from eye-opening presentations by multidisciplinary artists Tarikh Korula, Ian Ference, and Julia Solis to the how-did-we-get-here discussion led by writer/editor Alan Rapp.”
Jason Jude Chan, Flavorpill
Observatory says:
Ruins as an aesthetic category were born in the eighteenth century, and they continue to seduce and thrill the contemporary imagination. But rather than antiquity’s shattered agorae or the stripped medieval abbeys that littered the English countryside, the ruins that captivate us today are of the relatively recent past—not just the industrial era that established Western hegemony, but now an even more recent service/retail age that dominated American culture until the crash of the late 00s.
A few dedicated individuals are committed to investigating and documenting this ruinous legacy. These intrepid photographer-researchers infiltrate a variety of hidden and abandoned sites, often risking physical danger or arrest, to capture and share stirringly uncanny photographs expressing the grandeur and pathos of these majestically crumbling spaces.
On March 25th, join a panel of photographers and aficionados of the post-industrial sublime for a discussion that will explore the allure and fascination of visiting, photographing, and viewing these mysterious spaces. The evening will begin with a series of short presentations about the history and photography of The Modern Ruin. Following these presentations, moderator Alan Rapp will lead a discussion that will seek to explore the art, history, and culture of The Ruin and its depiction, from ancient examples to these modern ruins that span the abandoned lunatic’s asylum and tuberculosis wards, decrepit factory complexes and dead shopping malls. We will also probe the question of “why now,” with a special eye towards the acceleration of history which can make a ruin of sites as recent as a shopping mall, and ask if this contemporary fascination might speak to us of the twilight of our own empire.
