Ruins of theaters. Photo series by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

“Ruins are visible symbols and signs of our society, its changes, small traces of the course of history. A state of ruin is a temporary situation that happens at a certain stage, it is the result of a change of era - this is the opinion of two French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, who are the authors of an interesting series of photographs of American theaters built at the beginning XX century and caught up in deep decline at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

In the early 20th century, as a result of the development of the "entertainment industry", hundreds of concert halls and theaters were built in North America. But in the 60s, television lured away part of the audience, theaters became less visited, they were closed, not reconstructed and destroyed. Many of them are now used as churches, markets, game and dance halls, supermarkets and warehouses. And some have remained forgotten and abandoned.

This fragility and the passage of time make us look at the fleeting existence of everything that surrounds us. Everything lives and flourishes as long as society needs it, if the need for it disappears, it is forgotten and disappears into oblivion.

An extremely fascinating series of works by French photographers called Theater ruins show the viewer scenes that look like post-war devastation, and the most shocking of all this is that it is all modern.

Photographers Yves Marchand and Roman Maffre traveled to cities in the United States, photographing disappearing architectural icons, concert halls and theaters, where music has not been played for a long time, the audience's applause and the noise of the audience are not heard. All that is left there are empty halls with shabby walls, dilapidated curtains, dusty chairs.