Asylum Seekers

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Bathroom, Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA.
(taken of photo at Clic with my i-Phone)

Last Thursday night, my intrepid gallery-hopping gang of five and I left the opening of the must-see exhibit at hous projects, The Naked Truth in search of pizza and literally stumbled across another reception just winding down at Clic bookstore on Centre Street. Recently I have been rather obsessed with the beauty to be found in decayed and dilapidated matter, both natural and man-made. It feels timely, as part of the agri-tecture trend that I've been noticing recently. I fell instantly in love with the images on the walls at Clic of abandoned mental health hospitals. They're taken from a book of photographs by Christopher Payne called, Asylum, Inside the Closed World of Mental Hospitals.
I shot the one above of a bathroom with my i-Phone. I love the vines crawling down the walls inside.


Norwich State Hospital , Preston, Conn.


Yankton State Hospital, Yankton, S.D.


Spring Grove State Hospital, Catonsville, MD



There are some more photographs on the book's Amazon page and a slide show with The Times review of the book
If you are in New York definitely go to Clic on Centre Street to see the photographs but hurry, it ends on May 23rd!

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