Photographer Mario Pires is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay.  From the project ‘Bleak City ’.  To see Mario’s body of work, click on any photograph.

 

 

 

 

This is a series of pictures taken in Lisbon and its near vicinity, on places that are run down or in a state of near abandonment.

I wanted to portrait places that even 50 years ago were fertile farmland, and now are almost in ruins, or awaiting for gentrification.

Some  of these places have completely changed by now, and so these photographs turn into memories, joining countless others in the city archives. I wonder how many more will be needed until this path is reversed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am deeply rooted in my hometown of Lisbon. I cannot imagine living anywhere else.

This city has existed for at least a thousand years before the common calendar. Like everything, cities change. Each change brings another layer of destruction to the natural world.

As we move further and further away from our primordial connection to the soil, we become closer and closer to the synthetic material we create, and less and less human in the process.

When I was born, the place where I lived was mostly covered with agricultural land that could be traced back almost to the time of the Roman occupation. But then, little by little, farms were sold and buildings began to appear and spread. In just 50 years, the landscape has changed dramatically.

This exhibition was born out of my solitary walks around the city and my great love for Japanese photography of the 60s and 70s and its masters.

These legendary photographers pushed the boundaries of what photography could be and showed us how their visual language could break stereotypes and feel alive and urgent.

I decided that paying homage to that aesthetic was the best way to show how cities have become zombie-like creatures that help suck the life out of their inhabitants.

These photographs are my way of showing that, unless citizens rethink the way cities are built and developed, we are heading for a very grim future.

 

All images and text © Mario Pires

 

See also:

Now and in the hour of our death

By Mario Pires

 

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