rainrichter

[rainrichter]

On Abandoned Houses

Recently I’ve been thinking what makes me so interested in the uncanny, morbid and generally overlooked places and objects. It might have started from pure curiosity at first, then gradually evolved into a deeper appreciation for the no-longer-lovable.

People are known to form intense attachment to objects they see as ‘theirs’; things which possessed a certain charm, beauty and often considered high value to begin with, to then later be ‘claimed’ and taken care of by their ‘owners’. Objects of less aesthetic appeal very rarely have the ‘privilege’ of ‘being owned’, and when they finally get chosen, is always with the purpose of being improved, transformed ‘for the better’; their curse is to be forever seen as a ‘project in the works’, rather than good-enough definitive products. 

Of course, there is not anything inherently bad about man’s drive to constantly improve, and on a larger scale, chase an ideal, besides the fact that plenty of objects don’t need adjustments; their beauty and uniqueness lies precisely in their obvious imperfection. It’s exactly the cracked surfaces, chipped paint, overgrown vegetation that makes an object fascinating to look at. Once ‘fixed’, they become just another averagely valuable object and gets easily lost in the never-ending piles of things which are perfectly fine, yet not spectacular enough to deserve much attention and not be eventually forgotten. Such is the case for plenty of abandoned period houses, while passing by one in the street, one can look and still find it spectacular, despite the building almost collapsing.

In their aim for aesthetic perfection, people fall into the trap of ruining unique timeless beauty in the pursuit of temporarily fitting current trends. The chase of aesthetic perfection leads to an averaged-out result; authenticity and uniqueness disappear when the majority imposes a standard. When combining 100 pictures of different people, the resulting image will be considered more conventionally attractive than the single images as individual imperfections fade away when combined with others. Consequently, it could be said that looking 'averaged-out' in human beauty standards is what makes one most attractive.

When it comes to environment, the most admired and celebrated landscapes are in the extremes, with images of wilderness and remote natural spaces on one side, and intricately decorative and embellished human architectural projects on the other side. Each of them awakens in the viewer either appreciation for nature or amazement at human skill or artistry. When one is more prone to see their life in black-and-white, extremities generate obvious feelings: they are frequently being experienced, and consequently, one can easily categorise whether they feel positive or negative about something. 

I believe grey areas have to offer us distinctively complex emotions, which are worth exploring more frequently into than we normally would be willing to. In their characteristic silence and emptiness, neutral spaces challenge us to listen to what they have to say for us instead of letting our preconceived beliefs cloud our experience. One can only hear the subtle messages of silence once they decided to sit still. In a way, such an experience is similar to solitude, but in a mental rather than physical way. Even when we are alone, we spend most of our time with our mind full of thoughts concerning others. Abandoned houses force us in a way to observe the present for what it is, and perhaps engage with the past, but in a more creative, imaginative way.

Abandoned houses, like stray animals, out of which the most notable ones are pigeons, represent objects we used to love, and which, as soon as they lost their purpose, also lost their value in our eyes. Besides leaving them behind, with their removal from our lives, we also started feeling put-off by them. Not only have people abandoned but wish to completely get rid of and forget about everything as if it never existed. One thing people failed to comprehend, and which can be observed in animal behaviour just as much as in plant support systems, is that things shouldn’t be worth our love only in accordance with their present value in our eyes. Crows are known for taking care of their elders up until their death. Trees try to feed and support each other whenever one catches a disease or gets cut. While nature often tends to be harsh, there is also great lessons we can learn from a few parts of it. Sometimes we should keep loving for the simple reason that we once loved. If that fades over time, then mere appreciation was mistaken for love and therefore we have failed one fundamental duty we have to ourselves, to be honest and in touch enough with our senses to be able to distinguish between the two.

In my eyes, abandoned houses are the inanimate equivalents of domesticated pigeons. While the former, is mostly overlooked or disliked at most, the latter receives double the hatred for the very fact that it has a life. How dare something I place no value upon and even feel slightly repulsed by at times, take up space in my immediate reality? If only we could strictly be surrounded by objects and beings pleasant to the eye… But even then, wouldn’t the paradox of disliking something because is too good to be true take control over our beings and still awaken different, yet still equally harmful emotions such as insecurity regardless? If pigeons ceased to exist, wouldn’t man find another innocent creature that is too ‘in their space’, too troublesome from the very fact that it is alive, that would become the new target of unjustified anger? Man cannot bear the sight of his own kind, nevermind of others. 

Abandoned spaces fall under this category of spaces which usually would leave the surface-level thinker confused. “It’s falling apart. It’s ugly and rotten, what is there to like about this?”. Those buildings, which are too human to be considered wild, and too wild to be considered human, perfectly fall into the grey area through this trait alone. What was once natural environment, was disturbed by human alteration. Once man left, nature takes over the same structure in attempt to bring it back to its previous natural state. This process, which always eventually happens, highlights the permanence of nature in opposition with the temporality of human life. No matter how much man alters and destroys the environment, nature persists in wanting to heal and regenerate to what once was.

Regardless of whether one is spiritual or not, it cannot be denied that empty spaces always hold a very distinct energy compared to densely populated regions; their quietness forces you to think what the reason behind it might be. As opposed to a virgin forest, or even better, a field, which could be associated with an empty canvas, a barely standing abandoned structure resembles a sketch of a glorious painting that never was completed. Who was the artist and what did they had in mind? Most importantly, what happened that it was all left behind? What could’ve now been the artist to never give it up? The narrative begins to unfold before one’s eyes. When questions cannot be answered, we crave comfort, and we’ll try to get it even if that means we’ll need to come up with a response ourselves. Uncertainty is an uncomfortable state to live in, which can at points feel more like pain than simple discomfort.