1st place
gold star award
Aurélien Villette
france
title
Houses of culture
It often shows abandoned theaters in the United States telling the years of industrial development exponentially fast of the 20th century.
We describe their abandonment due to the first great economic crises. We forgot that the access to the culture and entertainment in public rooms increased during those years in many other places in the world. According to political developments, these places have different functions.
Here, I present theaters and cultural centers of the former USSR also abandoned. They played an important social role in the countryside and cities. So much were built for the cohesion of the regime and the ideological transmission, they played an important social role around art, dance, song, literature and theater.
Aware that many cultural knowledge was transmitted to the previous generation with these places, some associations seeking to save the last existing to safeguard the social bond of the people seriously compromised because of the current means of global communication.
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entry description
Photo taken in 2013 and 2014It often shows abandoned theaters in the United States telling the years of industrial development exponentially fast of the 20th century.
We describe their abandonment due to the first great economic crises. We forgot that the access to the culture and entertainment in public rooms increased during those years in many other places in the world. According to political developments, these places have different functions.
Here, I present theaters and cultural centers of the former USSR also abandoned. They played an important social role in the countryside and cities. So much were built for the cohesion of the regime and the ideological transmission, they played an important social role around art, dance, song, literature and theater.
Aware that many cultural knowledge was transmitted to the previous generation with these places, some associations seeking to save the last existing to safeguard the social bond of the people seriously compromised because of the current means of global communication.
about the photographer
Photographer Aurélien Villette questions the meaning and patrimonial of old abandoned buildings. While the latter represent an era in architectural history, they also bear witness to the specific history of a countryn a region or a civilisation. The remains left in these sites are thechronological markers of an era. Ruins become both objects of contemplation and meditationback to gallery