Saturday, December 5, 2015

11 SURREAL IMAGES OF THE FORGOTTENیازده عکس سورئال فراموش شد

HIGH-RISES OF PARIS ازساختمانهای آسمان خراش پاریس

Laurent Kronental spent four years documenting the “Grand Ensembles” (large housing projects) of Paris and the generation living within its walls.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the French government built the high-rise public housing projects to accommodate a rural exodus and inflow of immigrants. Today, the colossal buildings and its residents are a forgotten (and when remembered, often stigmatized) part of the city’s history. Many of the goliath-sized projects have fallen into disrepair, with a large amount scheduled for demolition.

“Today, the deteriorating buildings are largely considered failed experiments— catalysts for the alienation of their populations and a slew of accompanying social issues,” writes Jordan G. Teicher of The Washington Post. Yet despite being marginalized, these surreal estates bear an uncanny grandeur, a mass of unapologetic concrete offering a memory of a once-promised utopia.

With a 4×5 analog camera in hand, Kronental visited senior citizens still living there, people he considers the “memory of the locus.” In his photos, there is a sense of poetry and a parallel drawn between the neglected buildings and its inhabitants. His website reads:

These ‘monuments’, as living memories of their time, hold a fragile force: that of a younger generation that did not see itself age
این 'بناهای یادبود'، به عنوان خاطرات زنده زمان خویش ، نیروی شکننده ای را در خود نگه داشته : از نسل جوانی که پا به سن گذاشتن خود را ندیده است .