GRACE ELLINGER

PHOTOGRAPHY

ARTIST STATEMENT

Urban exploration is a popular pastime whose origins trace back to 1793. An explorer known for researching the Paris catacombs, Philibert Aspairt became famous for his premature death in a network of underground tunnels. The term urban exploration was coined by ‘Infiltration’ magazine in 1996, in an article that featured urban explorers. Urban exploring provides experiences and discoveries of abandoned locations few people have previously seen. The long-forgotten stories and the resulting emotions they inspired can provoke reconsideration of the old, falling apart structures.

Abandoned places have always instilled deep emotion for me as I think about the stories and individual memories rooted in the veins of their physical structure. Each place once served a collective purpose. I believe that exploring abandoned places gives you an appreciation of history and allows you to admire unexpected discoveries. I began urban exploration at the age of seventeen. This hobby brought thrills to an otherwise uneventful adolescence.

For this series of photographs, I researched places that are reported as vacant and undemolished. As I travel to these locations, I keep an eye out for other abandoned areas around the same place. The unexpected finds are always the most exciting. These photographs frame the architecture of abandoned structures. They highlight and depict a dull, withdrawn visual landscape through framing. The minimal color shows parts of the structures that point out the abandonment. This process was intriguing as each place embedded its own story in my mind of what possible events could have happened there.