Portopalo Castle, Sicily

This beautiful, now deserted castle, is slowly drifting into dilapidation in Sicily. Perched high on a cliff in the Syracuse, this has been looted, put up for sale – but remains eerily abandoned.

1936 Berlin Olympic Village

Outside of Berlin, buildings and facilities used by athletes attending the controversial 1936 Berlin Olympics lie unkempt and empty.

Forbidden places # 2

Sylvain Margain ' Forbidden places'



forbidden places image #1

From 'Forbidden places' by Sylvaine Margaine

Here is one of the images by sylvaine margaine. I really like the composition of the image, a little of centre, but the windows in the background create a nice effect, they also seem to be the main source of light in the picture, which adds a nice natural effect. I dont think studio lighting would achieve what the artist wanted!

 Theres a slightly eery feel, because of the surgery / dentist chair as the main point of focus, suggesting operations and surgery like things that happened in this very room so many years ago.

Forbidden Places - Exploring our abandoned histories

Forbidden Places by Sylvain Margaine, 2009

Research...

 I found some books in the library based on architecture which i foud when doing research from my essay, which have inspired me, these include Lost Europe, images of a vanished world - This is a photographic chronicle of architectural treasures that have been lost to civilisation by conflicts and disasters of the twentieth century. Some of the images in here are really interesting, and obviously there was a lot of history and importance surrounding these structures at the point in time when they were still standing.
 Then there is Building with Light by Robert Elwall, this book looks at how photography has had a close and mutually stimulating relationship with architecture. It offers an exploration of the development of photography and some of its key themes.
 The last book is called forcidden places, and this is the bok that has got me most excited and inspired. It is written by a man galled Sylvaine margiane and from a young age he and his father would go out to abandoned places and take photos, and explore. For ten years, he has travelled the world in search of these forgotten places. It is a photographic report, and the images are lovely, they really capture the spirit of the places the photographer was in.
I think this is the sort of work I want to do, but i just need to work out how to go about it.

So the project begins...

So its my final year at university, and I need to come up with a good idea for my final project and degree show. The first thing I have thought about doing is something surrounding the idea of architecture, as I love period buildings and love the history that you can sometimes feel in their atmosphere. I would like to be able to capture this somehow, so i would like to look at the structural element of these buildings, but also try and capture the atmosphere and tell stories through these buildings.
 I have done some research online, but cant find anything that really grabs my attention, its all very similar sort of images and there doesnt really seem to be any concepts that go along with this sort of work.

In August I went to an art exhibition at Compton Verney, called 'Volcano: Turner to Warhol'.

Compton Verney created the first exhibition to explore the history of human perception of volcanoes and the remarkable artistic outpourings that they have inspired over the past five hundred years. Through paintings, photographs, prints, film, books and diaries, and from images made on the spot to the most fanciful imaginings, the show demonstrated the long-held fascination of artists for these extraordinary natural phenomena.

Works by recent and living artists such as David Clarkson and Ilana Halperin were shown together with those long-dead, tracing a route through the sequence of a volcanic eruption – from calm to the first ominous rumblings, to cataclysmic explosion, panic and death, then finally back to dormancy and extinction.

Warhol’s huge canvas Vesuvius was shown alongside work by JMW Turner and Joseph Wright of Derby, as well as works from Compton Verney’s significant permanent collection of Neapolitan art, including the spectacular Vesuvius Erupting at Night by Volaire and the delightful David Allen portrait of Sir William and Lady Hamilton in their Naples home overlooking the active volcano. This painting was shown alongside the volcano-obsessed Hamilton’s (1776-79) publication Campi Phlegraei (Fields of Fire), lavishly illustrated by Pierre Fabris whose works reveal the shocking beauty of volcanoes and revolutionised our way of seeing them.

Eye opening and spectacular, the exhibition conveys the impact of living under the presence of volcanic activity, and the drama of volcanoes as symbols of creation and destruction, as well as recording their geological forms. It is curated by the Turner scholar James Hamilton, and features works from New York, Paris, Rome, Reykjavik, Naples, Copenhagen, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and London.

 I found this exhibition really interesting, and it was great to see all these different works, new and old all together in one big space. It was quite inspiring, and some of the work was really beautiful.