I recently discovered Abandoned America, a haunting collection of images that capture, quite viscerally, the transient nature of our cultural underpinnings. The first photograph I saw was this one – called ‘nothing ever dies’ – and it left me aching and hollow and feeling inspired. Coming shortly on the heels of reading The Starless Sea it resonated loud, echoing my sense of everything as half-formed, either falling into or emerging from ruin.
The whole project, for me, encapsulates a vision of the world as fecund, where the efforts people make today rot down to the compost of tomorrow’s creativity, inspiring a future generation to try and to make and to build even in the face of decay and desolation.
And it begs the question: to what sort of ruinousness do I want to contribute?