Sunday, December 13, 2009

Ghosts of Shopping Past



Via The Morning News. Photo of JC Penny at the abandoned Dixie Square Mall .

Cool interview with photographer Brian Ulrich and his work on abandoned malls.
At the end of 2007 with many rumblings of recession, I thought of those pictures and began the project in earnest in May of 2008. In many senses it was a vindication of what I had been talking about in my earlier work. How can an economy sustain a lifestyle based on exponential growth and the leisure and wealth to support it? It’s not rocket science to expect these kind of illusions to fail. What’s strange is how ingrained the brands and spaces are to us that so many were not only surprised to see major retailers and malls sink but were saddened. Many of these ideas were set in motion decades ago.

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