In this series I document vacant commercial units. These spaces are always transitional; they capture an intermediate stage between a before and an after. I explore the elements of construction and deconstruction that define these environments. Stripped of specificity, left-over objects and details of decor become anachronisms that develop new relationships with each other and with the spaces they inhabit.
In these images, I focus on the spaces themselves as they currently exist, independent of any prior function. I am interested in the fact that in this state of vacancy, these spaces are no longer “justified”; they serve no apparent purpose, and from them we have nothing to gain. How do we interact with spaces that are useless to us? When the transactional element of a commercial space is removed, and we can no longer benefit personally from it, how is our experience of the space altered?
More literally, my photographs document a large scale economic transition: the death of the retail industry. Without function, these spaces suddenly appear insignificant, and the passive nature they so readily acquire with vacancy tends to render them obsolete. In this sense, my photographs not only chronicle change, but more specifically decay.