For writers and artists, blogs can be a curse and a blessing. A curse when you spend hours of your time clicking your way through one blog then another, all the while not getting to the essay or the canvas or the slow walking, sitting, or writing practice. A blessing when you find like-minded souls and inspiration in the works they publish.
These two blogs have been a blessing for us at red Ravine: Walking Turcot Yards documents the author’s relationship with “the world’s largest abandoned space,” Turcot Yards in the south west of Montreal. (neath of Walking Turcot Yards also provides these photoblog links to other unusual and highly inspirational sites, including d e s o l a t e m e t r o p o l i s.) Anuvue Studio is written by Heather, who says in one of her posts that “‘normal’ isn’t part of my vocabulary.” Normal isn’t part of her imagery, either.
One theme that stands out in both blogs is “abandoned.” Abandoned buildings, playgrounds, homes. Abandoned industrial areas and overpasses. The photos evoke dreams of yellow-lit tunnels, desolate desert, wind whistling through broken glass. Being abandoned — such a dreadful thought. And yet, here are these left-for-good places, living on while the rest of us think they’re dead.
What does the word “abandoned” mean to you? What feelings does it bring up? Take a tour through these six images. As soon as you’re done, write a ten-minute practice on Abandoned is…
- Atget and Abandonment, from Walking Turcot Yards
- Abandon On Route 66, from Anuvue Studio
- Abandoned Shelter, from Anuvue Studio
- Abandoned, from Walking Turcot Yards
- By The Hand Of Man II, from Anuvue Studio
- New Purpose, from d e s o l a t e m e t r o p o l i s
Go!
Abandoned – 10 Minute Practice
The word abandoned first brings up an image of the end of a relationship when one person moves on while the other is left with the broken pieces of their world trying to understand what happened. In this context the one who was still invested in the relationship had been abandoned when the other moves out of their lives. Emotions overflow with loss on one side and with joy on the other.
The second image was more disturbing. A wicker basket filled with soft rags, holding a child discarded on the steps of a church. A tear stained note begging for understanding and forgiveness for the unthinkable act of letting this child behind. The child doesn’t feel abandoned because it is too young to know about abandonment but the mother knows of abandonment.
Abandoned implies a decision by someone to leave something behind. Whether it is because of lost interest, and inability to take care of it, or the circumstances that made it work before no longer exist, it was left behind while something else moved on.
For some reason the pictures in this practice didn’t invoke a visceral response of abandonment rather they seemed to be a testament to our society’s unfortunate tendency to dispose of things that no longer work, interest us or fall outside of the current flow of humanity. The photos were excellent and in ways shocking because of what were left behind.
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I’m glad you posted your practice as a comment. I wonder if abandoned buildings/space seems a different version of ‘abandoned’ than the sense of a person being abandoned.
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For me abandoned is a more personal act that impacts individuals. I know that we use it to qualify things left behind, be they a vehicle, building, industrial area but I have always viewed those area as victims of economic change and part of the evolution of an area rather than a sudden exodus (although the pictures of the hospital/hotel had that eerie sense of a sudden move).
I am more of a systems person who likes to see things in context of time and space rather than someone who sees how it is now, out of the context of how it came into being. Maybe that is why abandonment is more personal because the context is often lost.
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R3, love that you took the Topic and posted your practice on it.
Here is Recall:
end of a relationship
one person moves on
left with the broken pieces
the other moves out
Emotions overflow with loss
joy
wicker basket filled with soft rags
child discarded on the steps of a church
tear stained note
understanding
forgiveness
left behind while something else moved on
a testament to our society’s unfortunate tendency to dispose of things that no longer work
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ybonesy, I’ve been thinking about your question – I think abandoned buildings and deserted areas of large cities are an extension of the way we abandon people. It is a mentality that pervades: to leave behind what is old for the thrill of the new.
It seems as writers and artists, we are always excavating the old and bringing it to light so it will not be forgotten. Maybe we are the memory keepers of time.
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There is a strange aesthetic involved with old factories. They were built for purely practical reasons so you end up with forms that do not seem “typical” when many years later they rest in a state of abandonment and decay. That initial wonderment leads the urban (and rural) explorer onto other forms, conditions, that all have one thing in common – they are no longer needed. A pure product of capital, they are not even considered worthy of a proper burial or “endgame”. They simply get left behind until new markets conspire to create a new need for that location/space.
So I would tend to think that they are also like the way we “abandon” people who, in some way, are no longer needed.
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Maybe it is the ones who do the abandoning (of old factories and of people) who are the similar ones.
Another thing your comment makes me think, I hadn’t considered all the reasons places get abandoned. You bring up the factories that have no further practical use. Reasons for abandoning homes and towns might be different. Hmm, got me thinking over here…
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[…] on a ten-minute practice on Topic post, Abandoned -Posted in red Ravine, August 7, […]
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[…] 9, 2007 at 10:04 pm · Filed under stories I wrote this story based on Red Ravine’s writing practice for this week. They have a great list of photos from different blogs they visit. So their […]
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Wow…I must have been inside a cave when this posted…probably a corn field. Wow sloWalker, so very honored to be included. I’m gushing. I don’t gush…I don’t think I gush? I’ll ask my Sisters…
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You weren’t in a cave; you were in a car, driving all over the states. BTW, you should try this practice. I found the visual part to stimulate my writing in a new way.
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this is tangential:
disposable cameras
disposable silverware
disposable batteries
disposable people
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[…] Abandoned Is… is a writing practice written from the Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – “ABANDONED.” […]
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There is a book by an economics/business writer at NYT who wrote a book called, I think, The Disposable American. It’s about men and women who lose their jobs as companies downsize, outsource, move overseas. The effects of that kind of abandonment are deep — many of the individuals the author followed over time did not recover, fell into depression, couldn’t find work again.
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Yeah, part of the disposable economy is planned obsolescence. But does it really have to include people? I guess once that mentality takes hold, it pervades everything. Sad.
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[…] -from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – “ABANDONED” […]
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[…] think I first ‘met’ Neath by looking at the link I saw on Red Ravine. The name, Walking Turcot Yards, totally intrigued […]
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