Upon entering the display space, the viewer is confronted with 12 very large colour photographs. Each photo was taken with only available light and with the depth of field necessary to hold a tight focus from foreground through background. Moreover, in using a very wide angle lens and carefully selecting the camera's position, space has taken on the greatest of emphasis. Though vertical lines and perspective have not been corrected, the resulting oblique angles and imperfect architectural lines serve to increase the eerie mise-en-scene of the overall work. All this combines to allow the viewer to nearly physically enter the space themselves, breathe in the dusty air and take a look around. In doing so they will be confronted with the strong and often contrary emotions that space like this can evoke – both excitement and solace. However, beyond the literal experience of entering the space, in capturing the natural light and printing in such a way to hold the softness of the institutional pastel colours, these photos can also become formal experiences; reduced to simple colour fields exploring a formal aesthetic in textures of decay.

What exactly drives people to explore these places? In part, it must be an adolescent urge to simply go where you're not supposed to go; to satisfy natural desires of curiosity and exploration. But also, there is the slightly more sophisticated desire to participate in amateur archeology. Ultimately, in exploring these spaces, we're trying to learn something about the people who once occupied these buildings through the analysis of what they left behind. The atmosphere one encounters upon entering a large, abandoned institution is strangely akin to that of an ancient tomb or pyramid. It's a very “Indiana Jones” type experience – your curiosity struggles with your fear and sense of self-preservation; you're constantly deciding whether to turn back or continue on. Though my pictures are of empty interiors, through them I hope to satisfy a deep-rooted and almost instinctive desire to feel traces of human warmth there. This dichotomy is mirrored in the mixed emotions one has towards abandoned buildings, especially ones that are legacies of our recent past. They inspire incredible adrenaline and excitement as well as providing immense calm and solace - feelings akin to those felt entering an ancient archeological site. In a way we are both the perpetrators and victims in the crime of dereliction. While we can attempt to step into the shoes of the people who once walked these halls, we also know that, indirectly at least, we are responsible for them not being there anymore. This idea equally applies to the pyramids of the Maya in the Yucatan in Mexico as it does to the abandoned structures of the Whitby Psychiatric Hospital .

There is growing attention paid worldwide to haikyo or the exploration and infiltration of abandoned sites – an urban archeology. And strangely enough, outside Japan, southern Ontario seems to be a hotbed of activity in that realm. Though the practice of haikyo far predates the advent of the internet, it is only through this tool that entire communities have formed around sharing information about sites and fostering an environment of healthy one-upmanship. I was able to tap into this community in order to locate and assess the photographability of various sites.

As such, it is quite obvious that I am not alone in my desire to create work of this sort. In prominently using the word “haikyo”, I am very consciously tying my practice to those of the well known Japanese haikyo photographers Shinichiro Kobayashi and Ryuji Miyamoto. Moreover, I see my work incredibly indebted to the thoughts and photographs of Canadian photographers Edward Burtynsky and Robert Polidori – both of whom deal with marginalized, rotting spaces, but through their subject selection and manner of photographing, take a specific stance in the issues alluded to. And this seems to be the missing element in my work: its politicization. In moving towards spaces that people can picture day-to-day human activity in, I gained a new connection with my audience. However, in moving away from my previous, often industrial subject matter, I lost the ability to deal with human industry and economic progress as subjects in my work. Ultimately I know that an artist can make a career out of narcissistic subjective expression, but nevertheless I feel strongly about the responsibility of the artist to provoke and utilize the freedom of expression afforded them to engage in public discourse. The unique societal position of the artist allows them to discuss in an unstructured manner the great issues that face humans today.

“In disengagement from usefulness, controlled time, and social context, perhaps these buildings act as great solace to the modern mind.”

– Masaaski Takahashi