“The more images I gathered from the past, I said, the more unlikely it seemed to me that the past had actually happened in this or that way, for nothing about it could be called normal: most of it was absurd, and if not absurd, then appalling.”
(W.G. Sebald, Vertigo)
What I have learned from my adventures in abandoned, forgotten places is that we see the past differently when decay serves as the curator of an artwork shaped by chance. For me, there is no better way to experience history than by exploring the traces of the past in the present.
Souvenirs of Places is an ongoing personal photo project—a collection of images of abandoned spaces and the memories of places that inevitably fade over time.
Stimuleringsfonds voor Creative Industrie
Photography and Research: Ricky Rijkenberg