AsylumUnique in its EmptinessTwenty five years ago the asylum at Athens was deserted. Everyone had left. Even the dairy farm and most of the asylum grounds, once the pride of the town, were simply postcard memories. The place stood silent, alone. This is what I was moved to capture with my camera, a photographic adventure that continues to this day. Most captivating were the empty spaces, the cheerless patient wards, the specious hallways, the arched basement corridors, the signs outside of the emptiness inside, the grave markers - identified only by number - standing as sentinels on nearby hills. Built in the early 1870s as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, once a community of some 1,800 patients, 'The Ridges,' as it is known today, has new life and purpose but much still stands frozen in time. |