Urban Exploration is one of the few activities you can do that makes you feel truly the whole and one with the present day. Throughout my short time as an Urban Explorer (2015-2017) I've learned many valuable things about my life, the past, and the future, which urban exploration as highlighted for me every visit to a new place. Many of my past archives for HUMA involve an abandoned barn which my friend and I somehow sense as a positive space whenever we venture their to visit. This abandoned barn had a small house adjacent to it which is where the picture below was taken. This abandoned house has a cemetery behind it and it is very poor condition itself.
When you enter someone's home you immediately get a certain sense or "vibe" about their space, whether it be filthy or heavenly, you can sense it's presence on you. This house had a personable character to it as it was a old fashioned retro home with floral wallpaper and pastel painted walls. However, the basement unfinished, flooded, moldy, and dark presented a character we did not see as pleasant and we wondered what could have made the people of this beautiful home (in the middle of a beautiful field leave without warning. We will never know, but the sense of this past gives a refreshing life to our present situation. Time is a surreal thing that can make you realize certain aspects of life are more cherishing than others and with urban exploration the past and future seem to be pressed together and intertwined. Patrick Potter, the author of Beauty in Decay, describes the importance of these places as the ideal place for contemplation because you have to take yourself out of life in order to truly contemplate yourself and thereby your life. In this way the ruin provides a place outside the world from which the world can be gazed upon serenely (2010). The influence of this houses decay gives a sense of human character and inevitable end but the nature and freshness of a place that it outside the control of human hands leaves a thought of hope to a cluttered mind. With the pace of todays society time flies by very quickly but in these places the time seems to stand still as nothing is in a rush to do anything because it has all the time in world. Furthermore, the myth of progress is used to justify our continuing acceptance that our society is being organised the only way it could possibly be. However, the ruin deminishes our narrow mindedness and gives us hope in a different future that is guided by past failures and stabilized by the reassurance of finite time (Potter, 2010).Humans live life fast paced and these places slow you down to the influences of time and the importance of environmental presence and historic importance because at some point everything will be considered historic including our time on Earth.
The photo below represents being in a place of the past and looking forward to a future for all. My friend in the mid ground represents the present time period of wonder, adventure, and curiosity for both past and future; being stuck between time. The future of this place and millions of other places in the future will be the take over of nature and decay on man made structure. This is an aesthetic that reminds us that humans are not eternal but nature is. The past is represented by the house, with it's cracks and rotting frame work, missing glass windows, and chipped paint. It's a true reminder we are only here for little while.
