Search results for ""Author Francis Meslet""

Beautiful, haunting photographs of abandoned places in Belgium. The ultimate visual reference in Belgian urban exploration. These outstanding photographic reports aim to draw attention to the often dramatic fate of a country’s abandoned heritage and its frequently forgotten beauty. The locations featured all have their own stories to tell, in a variety of voices, but with one shared theme: the fall from grace. The old blast furnaces from the province of Liege, an old textile factory in West Flanders, or Europe’s first commodities exchange – a Gothic Revival gem in the province of Antwerp … These architectural monuments have been left to weather the elements and pass into oblivion, offering a unique perspective on abandoned Belgium. At the threshold between life and death, and immortalised by Francis Meslet, these structures radiate a silence that speaks volumes. These pictures have extraordinary secrets to tell. Between 2010 and 2023, Francis Meslet travelled around Belgium looking for abandoned places – witnesses to history and the socio-economic changes that have shaped the country. What began as a way of documenting the neglect of industrial and urban monuments, quickly expanded to include other dispossessed places: factories, industrial wastelands, schools, churches, Roman baths, swimming pools, theatres, mansions, castles, and hospitals, for example. His photography captures the grandeur and decadence of one of the oldest European nations.

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Between 2012 and 2019 Francis Meslet photographed several hundred places of worship across Europe. Over time, these places have became enveloped in silence, the only thing heard there now an occasional gust of wind whistling though broken stained glass, or the rhythmic drip of water leaking through the dilapidated roof above a nave. Nevertheless, these muted places still draw an occasional visitor. Once upon a time, prayers could be heard recited in Latin in a German church; and in a French Catholic college, the voices of children once resounded to the sound of the bells. But who can imagine what sounds might be concealed behind the walls of a crypt in the heart of the Italian mountains, or within a tomb in a former convent in Portugal? In his spare time Francis travels the world in search of places that have fallen into disuse -- religious buildings where time has stood still since their doors were closed for the last time. He returns with incredible photographs, each a time capsule, a record of a parallel universe. They prompt us to let our imaginations wander and ask ourselves questions. With the greatest respect for the faithful who regularly visited them long ago, he offers us an opportunity to immerse ourselves in places that have been abandoned by faith, to seek a divine light.

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