I've been following the work of photographer Julia Solis for a while now and she is beyond crush-worthy. Julia spends her time scaling the crumbling walls of decaying and abandoned mental hospitals, prisons, factories, schools, and theatres (just to name a few). The result is not only amazing images, but a heavy sense of sadness, loss, and haunted wonder. I can't help but imagine the former life of these places once filled with happy school children, rough inmates, and busy nursing staff. To see Julia's full portfolio of work you can visit her blog, Dark Passage Travelogue or her website, Dark Passage where she shares many of the stories behind the ruins.
"Abandoned stages large and small. Grand old movie palaces, ballrooms, school auditorium, theaters in hotels, mental hospitals, churches and jails. No matter how glamorous or shabby, they have one thing in common: Before being darkened forever, they were the sites of entertainment, pleasure, and contemplation - sometimes for audiences who had no other means of escaping their worlds."
"In the course of organizing clandestine scavenger hunts and other frivolities, Dark Passage has discovered a plethora of derelict sites, the exploration of which has fed an ever more urgent obsession. Rather than seeing the documentation of these spaces as an end in itself, it is meant as fodder for further creative projects. In the meantime, however, some of the photos and stories resulting from our excursions are presented on this site."
Thank you Julia for being my Crush of the Week. Your work is not only amazing but it gives me pause - and that's something I always appreciate and admire in an artist. xo
I LOVE THIS!!
Posted by: Erin | 07 June 2011 at 11:31 AM