On a bike ride mid-autumn, I passed a decrepit looking house, with an orange “no trespassing” sign on the front. I immediately decided that I wanted to photograph this house, in the snow, at night. Fast-forward a semester to last week, when Grace and I drove around northern Oberlin, looking for abandonment to photograph. When we passed this house, we decided to get out and check it out. Though I was planning to just scope out the outside to photograph in darkness, when we were looking around and photographing it, we found the back door unlocked. With a resounding, “I don’t want to go in there, but I must,” we entered the house, finding a strange scene around us.
This series maps an abandoned house. The house is left in an eerie state of desertion; with clothing, paperwork, harmonicas, and photographs left strewn around. The series focuses on points of exit: the windows. It begs the questions left unanswered: who, why, when. Elusive shadows suggest presence where emptiness and entropy prevail. The images lack space in time; no appliances, styles or objects date the escape.
Though the windows allow depart, they are, for the most part, hindered with blinds, shades and broken glass. The view is brighter outside than in, but almost to the point of blinding bleakness.
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