All around us, monuments of our past lie abandoned. Through this project, my objective is to raise awareness for the forgotten and derelict things people pass every day but will never lay eyes upon and never fully appreciate.
My sophomore year of school I met a fellow classmate who called himself an urban explorer. This term is used to define someone who explores abandoned areas. They have the sole intention of documenting their adventures with cameras, so it can be shared or used to create artwork. I was intrigued by this.
I was lucky enough to make friends with him and join his group for a few excursions. The things I saw and places in the city I discovered were so amazing it was hard to put them into words. I had no idea places like this existed. I was addicted to urbex.
I was spending so much of my time documenting abandoned buildings and seeking out new spots that I began to fall behind in school. I was too into urban exploration and not enough into my assignments. I tried to think of ways to incorporate my strange hobby into my schoolwork.
I had hundreds of pictures, both on film and digital, of beautiful abandoned places. I enjoyed putting my 35mm film into "reels" or seamless digital collages of my adventure. These inspired an advertising campaign "Forgotten". Raising awareness for abandoned places in an effort to protect them and show people there is beauty in decay.
As an explorer it is your duty to keep forgotten places a secret, for their protection from vandals and thieves. Yet at the same time I wanted to share my photography in a way where it might become accepted by the graphic design world.
Forgotten Magazine could be offered to a more niche audience. My skills in collage could be better utilized through the spreads and I could even tell stories about my adventures. Yes, these spreads have stories not just lorem ipsum. I write detailed accounts every time I explore somewhere new words are even better at conveying our surroundings than pictures.
