Ruin porn

[reader]

Spoiler warning -- This isn't about sex.

 

I post this because it reminded me that Bangkok--like most major cities--offers some wonderful opportunities to step back into the past in deserted and often hard to access locations.  Christian has taken us to many of them around Thailand on his blog and I've found all a source of fascination. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.  But for the more adventuresome, it can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

 

Excerpted from CNN

 

 

Ah, porn. Few words come with as many pre-loaded connotations and assumptions -- the promise of titillation, the thrill of taboo, the inherent air of seediness. Think poverty porn. Think food porn. Think good-old fashioned porn-porn. So what are we to make of "ruin porn", the work of photographers and artists who aim to communicate the romantic frisson -- as they see it -- of run-down buildings?

 

The allure of ruin remains prominent in tourism and popular culture, including abandoned amusement parks such as Sydney's Magic Kingdom park, Germany's Cold War-era Spreepark, and Japan's Takakanonuma Greenland in the Fukushima district. Photographers who capture these sites have a name: "urban explorers", and many keep diaries of their discoveries on social media platforms.

 

These images represent not only economic failure, but ideological failure, representing a break with modernized conceptions of cultural innocence and everyday enjoyment.

 

Ruins appear to confront society's faith in anthropological endurance. Decaying buildings signify the inevitable process of history, to which we, too, will eventually succumb. Essentially, 'ruin porn' is a kind of time travel to the future within the present.

 

http://www.cnn.com/style/article/what-ruin-porn-tells-us-about-ruins-and-porn/index.html

[vinapu]

 

I post this because it reminded me that Bangkok--like most major cities--offers some wonderful opportunities to step back into the past in deserted and often hard to access locations.  

 

Sathorn Unique building , empty shell of which stands right beside  Saphan Taksin BTS is for me one of most prominent of Bangkok landmarks

[reader]

From Coconuts Bangkok

 

 

Photographer Dax Ward has been shooting abandoned places throughout Thailand, South Africa, and his home country, the United States, since 2016.

 

Coconuts previously featured his photos of abandoned trains in Thailand, and ahead of his first solo show in Asia — opening this Friday at Sathorn’s JAM Cafe — we followed Ward to one of his recent shooting locations to talk about his work and upcoming exhibit, “Abandonia”.

 

A few of his photo series, such as those of Chonburi’s abandoned Batman nightclub and Thailand’s airplane graveyard, have been published by The Guardian, The Daily Mail, CNN Style, The Sun, (and interestingly) The Weather Channel.

 

Yesterday, we followed Ward around a block of abandoned apartments in Samut Prakarn, one of the locations featured in “Abandonia”. The construction project clearly came to a sudden halt — there’s one tower that ends just halfway through.

 

Ward says that he tries to get permission from the owners to visit the abandoned places he shoots, but he’s also not opposed to climbing a wall or bribing a security guard to gain access. He doesn’t feel bad about doing that because: “When I go to a place, I never intend to do any damage. I never break a lock. I just walk in and document the history and state of the place before it disappears.”

 

He also notes that Thai trespassing laws are based more on the intent of the person than their actual presence in a forbidden place. So, if they found glass bottles or spray paint on you, you might be in more trouble than if you were walking around with a camera.

 

The owners of some places that appear in “Abandonia”, such as a movie theater that he shot outside of Sukhothai, were actually thrilled to show him around. They were glad to have someone interested in hearing their family’s story — of how hard they tried to keep the place running, but ultimately had to close it down due to competition from nearby mall theaters.

 

Exhibit location

 

JAM Cafe
41 Soi Rong Nam Kang
BTS Surasak

 

Continues with photos and map

https://coconuts.co/bangkok/lifestyle/abandonia-exploring-abandoned-sites-photographer-dax-ward-ahead-solo-show-jam/

[Guest abang1961]

I certainly do not enjoy looking at such depressing pictures.  From the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis to that 2008 Sub-Mortgage  Fiasco, there are so many unfinished projects across countries like Thailand and Malaysia.  

 

I am not that familiar with those abandoned buildings in Thailand but witnessed a rather sorry site in Kuala Lumpur downtown.  Pudu was the epicenter of bus transfer activities in the 70s through 90s.  But a shift of the bus to a suburb some 20 minutes away, rendered the Pudu Sentral building redundant.  Today it is just a shade of its glorious past.  The construction site adjacent to it had been left untouched for more than 20 years and yes, the metal had badly corroded.   It is rather sad that despite earnest effort to spruce up the city of KL, many of these semi-finished projects are left forgotten. 

[vinapu]

I like ruins and I'm not alone as millions visiting Bagan , Angkor, Efes , Forum Romanum , Machu Picchu and zillions of European castles attests. 

At first it looks unsightly but give it a time and every ruin becomes charming landmark 

[Guest abang1961]

Ruins of historical values are different from unfinished construction sites.

I have visited numerous old temples, old cities in Thailand and they are wonderful memories of the glorious past,

Unfinished construction sites are just painful reminders of a decadent past!

[vinapu]

Ruins of historical values are different from unfinished construction sites.

I have visited numerous old temples, old cities in Thailand and they are wonderful memories of the glorious past,

 

if past was so glorious those buildings would not be in ruins, right?

 

somebody either destroyed or abandoned them, it's why they are in ruins

[NIrishGuy]

Not really Vinapu, otherwise that's like saying the Ankor Wat etc wasn't a glorious place in it's day otherwise it would not be in ruins today - when obviously that's simply not the case.

[vinapu]

what I meant is that past  was not entirely glorious- it was when they built it and Angkor thrived but certainly was not when it was abandoned.

 

1960 's was glorious time for people of western Europe but not for Vietnamese and we can go on and on

[PeterRS]

The past is only glorious for a moment in time, whether that moment is fleeting seconds or hundreds of years. Then time marches on. Had it not been for inquisitive explorers, the ancient Egyptian tombs would be buried under sand, Angkor Wat under thick forests after its water system failed, Persepolis under desert sand, Machu Picchu undiscovered and much of the structures of the old Roman and Greek Empires lost forever under meters of earth and dust accumulated during the following millennia. We should be thankful that at least some of our worlds history has both been found and is being preserved. Apart from their magnificence they helps bring the peoples of the world closer.