Abandoned Manitoba: Follow Us as We Document the Hidden Abandoned Places of Manitoba

(Main Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba circa 1895. Source: National Archives of Canada)

Some of you are aware that Canada has never been considered one of the best countries in the world to explore abandoned sites, due to Canada's national policy for demolition projects of derelict buildings or converting derelict properties over to new owners, often into the hands of non-profit organizations. Oftentimes, a non-profit revitalizes a derelict property preserving it into a historical monument for decades to come. Alternatively, many a non-profit just doesn't have the funding to make a complete conversion and a vast number of the buildings remain derelict at the site for decades longer.

These properties are wonderful opportunities for photographers and historians to explore. Unfortunately, for many of us, we don't know they're out there to explore. No one is going to advertise these histories, locations and so on unless you travel the country roads a lot or keep up with the sporadic media reports about these landmarks. Your only other resource is spending unlimited hours in historical archives.

I'm all for preservation of historical sites, but the renovation process often renders the historical artifacts and architectural features obsolete. Once lost, these are never recovered unless someone documents them first. The preservation and renovation leans more to a symbolic historical monument then anything tangible. We need to remember that often times those derelict sites contain histories our culture doesn't want to remember. And that's why we not only call those marginalized and abandoned but also the forgotten one's.

The kinds of explorations some of us do do NOT end up in our Canadian school system's text books. History is continually erased where those would like it to be erased. However, I ask a vital question about this erasure. How does a culture, a nation, whatever this may be learn from their past mistakes in this manner? Perhaps we're all prone to wanting to hide our mistakes, shove them in a deep, dark closet or up into a musky, damp attic until the day we throw it all away or demolish it out of sight and memory.

Sometimes we can't even do that, as in the cases of nuclear tragedies such as Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Well, as some of us know, this is when we encounter the BS campaigns, orchestrated by governments, the international media and big corporations that have an invested interest in these outcomes. And they would just like us to know they would prefer we know as little as possible. Happy, ignorant sheep continue to be consumers, and every nation needs consumers. Some of us are still waking up' and enraged that democracy seems to have very little to do with 'protecting' the people and more to do with protecting big corporation, this includes the lies and coverups to cover up all the environmental disasters throughout history due to big corporation.

This also includes the cover ups of institutionalized 'mental asylums' where those not wanted in society were suddenly labeled with a 'mental disorder'. Imagine living in a generation where parents or your husband, just thoroughly sick of you for whatever reason, you've become an emotional or financial burden, maybe your husband didn't want to suffer the public embarrassment of divorcing you? So they could just drop you off at the nearest asylum? You have to wonder if those family members slept at night considering the 'cutting edge' therapeutic technologies that went on in asylums, like lobotomies, ice baths, electric shock therapy and brutal restraints to name a few.

This is why it's so essential for some of us to document what we can before it all fades. For me, sometimes it's a fine line between truth and deception, life and death and giving honor to those who have been forgotten, most often buried in unidentified graves. Just another number. No name. Their voices muted and then demolished out of memory. Out of history. This is my passion. Follow us this year as we travel and document Manitoba's abandoned places. Sometimes haunted places. The voices of the past still speak, of our ancestors, our history, right out of their unidentified graves, if we listen closely enough.

Mental Baggage: Abandoned Suitcases On Environmental Graffiti

I want to give a new website on the web a 'two thumbs up' for quality stories, history and interesting facts - not to mention some quality images. The website in question is Environmental Graffiti. The site consists of your typical types of topics, asylums and other abandoned buildings, but also includes a variety of historical context, such as these Mental Baggage: Abandoned Suitcases from an Mental Asylum.

A Peek into Asylum: One Photographer's Perspective of the Interior World of Mental Asylums

 

(Photographer: Christopher Payne. Title: File Boxes)

If you love the idea of photographing abandoned buildings and institutions, yet don't like the idea of trespassing on private property, you might like the way Christopher Payne went about photographing 70 mental hospitals across 30 states between the years of 2002 to 2008. Christopher Payne, photographer and architect, was given open access to visit and document the history of the American asylum in his newest book, Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals. We peek into Payne's perspective about the interior world of mental asylums from a photographer's (and architect's) point-of-view.

"We tend to think of mental hospitals as “snake pits”—places of nightmarish squalor and abuse—and this is how they have been portrayed in books and film. Few Americans, however, realize these institutions were once monuments of civic pride, built with noble intentions by leading architects and physicians, who envisioned the asylums as places of refuge, therapy, and healing." 

 (Excerpt: Asylum Project Statement)

Take Nothing but Photographs, Leave Nothing but Footprints

If you've ever read any of our past article posts regarding our views about trespassing or breaking and entering, then you know we don't agree with a sub-group of certain explorers these days. There are at least two other methods of gaining access to a building. One is express permission as Payne's six-year project clearly illustrates, and we like how his creative project exemplifies how gaining access to non-accessible institutions through legitimate routes benefits the documentation of abandoned institutions before they are demolished forever.

Another method of exploration is to visit one of the many hospitals and prisons that are open to the public. I've heard explorers suggest these are less exciting alternatives; well, all I have to say about that is they need to figure out why they're doing what they're doing and why they're effectively ruining it for the rest of us. It seems to me photographers and historians do less damage in buildings, are less interested in the hype about infilteration, thus follow urban explorations golden rule:

"Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints."

There are times when someone needs to tread softly and go through an already open door (Note: That does not mean pick a lock or kick the door down ... ), but those moments are only known by the faint footprints left behind. The footprints left behind do not need to be published all over the web inviting vandalism and thrill seekers. This is why there is such heavy security these days at many of the remaining locations not yet demolished - at least in our humble opinion.

Copyright and Permissions

Photographers that trespass also need to keep in mind that without express permission from the owners, your published photography, or even photographs entered into photography contests could be forfeited without the proper permissions from the owners of the property.

A Photographer's Approach

Granted, it could take years to gain permission to enter and photograph some of these decaying institutions, but that holds a particular excitement on its own. Furthermore, Payne was able to photograph some off-limits buildings that housed residents, meaning the buildings were not yet vandalized, nor looted and stripped of their interiors and artifacts. This fact actually makes Payne's photographs of particular interest. In context, this lends to his work an engaging mixture of sweeping interior landscape and still life. A few of my favorite photographs from Payne's collection are 'Patient Toothbrushes' taken at Hudson River State Hospital, 'Hair Salon' at Trenton State Hospital, 'Unclaimed Cremation Remains' at Oregon State Hospital, 'Patient Suitcases' at Bolivar State Hospital, 'File Boxes' at Spring Grove State Hospital and 'Bowling Shoes' at Rockland State Hospital.

Technique: Use of Light, Space and Minimalism

Another aspect of Payne's Asylum collection I like is his minimalist approach. In fact, I prefer to see images of asylums that are clean, bright, simple and elegant. In fact, many of Payne's images run counter-intuitive to the mainstream urban exploration crowd. Sometimes when I'm viewing the dark, shadowed images common to urban exploration, I simply wish I could see the details of an image in the light of daylight. Maybe my age is telling in itself, but if I have to squint that much to see a darkened image I am finding it not worth my time more and more these days. It's simply a matter of taste and style, but I've really enjoyed the use of light, space and minimalism of Payne's Asylum project. If you're interested in viewing a sample of images published in the book Asylum, you can view the slideshow here.

If you're interested in viewing Payne's projects, you may visit his website here. I also enjoyed his project listed under North Brother Island, in New York. Christopher Payne also has more upcoming gallery exhibits in 2012-2013 in Belgium, Netherlands and Italy.

Rockwood Insane Asylum Upper Canada

Upper Canada's Rockwood Insane Asylum, open from 1859 to 1959, cared for the criminally insane. In fact, the hospital was built by the labor of those convicts by which the hospital was intended. Patients slowly moved in from 1859 through 1870.  The facility is considered a Kirkbride, although it may not represent the original Kirkbride designs in every respect.

Rockwood was Kingston, Ontario's asylum for 100 years, later transitioning into the Providence Continuing Care Centre - a community facility for those coping with mental disabilities. In 2000, the facility buildings were empty after 141 years of service to the surrounding community.

In 2011, Providence Care is beginning a new facility construction next to the original structures at Rockwood. It's hard to say at this time if they intend on preserving the original structures at Rockwood, or eventually demolishing them.

I'm hoping they will not be demolished. In the past 40 to 50 years until more recently, Canada seemed to demolish their historic structures, such as hospitals and prisons, rather promptly in comparison to the USA and certain European countries. However, these days, Canada is moving in a different direction regarding the preservation of historic landmarks.

But much depends on the structural integrity of the buildings, and if a demolition permit will be granted. However, it is also unfortunate Providence Care is going the route of building a new structure rather than revamping the original site as their new facility.

It usually turns out almost every time I've seen this approach taken with other care facilities the new facility is poorly constructed, and the overall cost is a lot more than the total cost of refurbishing the original facility back to its earlier days of splendor. I find this a misfortune.

There are few photos of Rockwood since its 2000 vacancy. The reasons behind this appear to be a very strict security patrol. But I'm not sure how many permissions they give to researchers and media at this time.  Evidently, paranormal investigators also haven't been granted any access or route to investigate as of yet.

So many of these historic monuments are severely restricted these days, especially over the last 5 years; it is rather unfortunate for those of us attempting to actually document something worthy of being documented. In many ways, it is partly due to the explosion of the popular urbex movement around the Internet, and young misplaced arson's reading about locations via the Internet, which were once more privately known about but suddenly everyone and their sister knew about. Locations were flooded, and often vandalized.

The Internet in the end has been the slow death for true explorers, and with the demolition of so many buildings already occurred and with so many more to come - even Beelitz around 2013 - I feel a sense of urgency as an era comes to a close never to be seen again. For those really into infiltration, I suppose it hold its charms.

I'm seeing more and more art exhibits these days reflecting urban explorer artistry. Sadly, I feel Canada overall missed out on this exodus of artistry and history married in spirit. In historical documents, there are various places in Ontario that declare they have no records, including photos, of past architecture, but at the same time Canada's policies, whether local, provincial or federal toward urban explorers has not been a welcoming partnership in the truest sense of historical collaboration.

Beelitz Germany does not restrict visitors to the hospital, where certain buildings are still in use, while others are vacant a good number of years. Some visitors are past patients, or families of past patients, others are photographers and explorers. I totally wish Canada and even parts of the USA had taken this approach, especially in facilities where parts of the facility are currently active.

It seems perfectly logical and even gracious to allow visitors, rather than the attitude of exclusivity and fear predominating the scene these days. After all, it is everyone's history and legacy, so why the stingy high security mentality? Once again, we are crossing the joining rivers, a crisis of delineating what is private property and what is societies common rights to access a heritage that so many would like us all to forget about, like it never existed.

But as much as we need the present and a strong future, we also need a map of our past. We need historians of all shapes and sizes. Not only those schooled with mainstream paradigms, but those of the collective. We need the postmodernists and neomodernists as much as the rest who help us interpret and deconstruct our collective histories of the urban environment, along with our collective interpretations of any societies view on madness at any given time in history. 

American History: The Labotomy

PBS created an educational series within the American Experience History Series called The Labotomist. In American history, the doctor Walter Freeman is known to have spread the practice of labotomies upon mental health patients, in particular in the state of West Virginia. Quite chilling, but an excellent editorial of footage exists at the website. Below are a few that struck me, but there are a list of videos to choose from. 




Warehoused Patients and Experimental Treatments:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lobotomist/program /lobotomist_03.html

The W.Virginia Labotomy Project:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lobotomist/program /lobotomist_09.html

Dr Freeman's last performed psychosurgery (1967) & final journey:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lobotomist/program /lobotomist_12.html

Shutter Island

Finally, Shutter Island was released many months later than its orginal release date.

I had mixed feelings, about the flick, in fact. I adored the cinematography and in certain seconds a fleeting sensory of being in Kubricks' "The Shining" -- my all time favorite flick. In other instances, I was dragged back into the more current film "Inglorious Bastards."

In the end, the beautiful old asylum, the director and cinematography and luscious scenes flowing over with voluptous memories painted in with the brush of time slowing down makes it a classic before it will be sought as so. (Kudos for the visual delights)

The plot on the other hand, leaves me wondering...

A Gorgeous Neo-1920s Prelimnary Scene

A Hauntingly Breathtaking Scene sure to be a Classic

This part is where it gets troubled...

Somehow I feel the movie did not deliver in totality here somehow...hmmm

All Material in this Photo Blog Gallery is Copyrighted & May not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without my permission. All Rights Reserved.

Dorothea Dix and Harrisburg State Hospital

Harrisburg State Hospital was the first insane asylum built in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania back in 1853, due to the efforts of advocate Dorothea Dix. Her petitions were successful and the first psychiatric hospital was founded in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania hospital was founded in 1845, and was originally named the Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital and Union Asylum for the Insane.

Later the hospital would become known as Harrisburg State Hospital due to the change in climate surrounding state hospitals and the mentally ill. The psychiatric hospital facilities cared for the mentally ill for over 150 years until its recent closing in 2006. Today different state agencies are utilizing the buildings for office space.

With over 8,000 miles of land originally, the campus size facility has often been aptly deemed the “City on the Hill”. It was one of the first designed Kirkbride buildings, erected in modest neo-classical design and completed in 1851 by architect John Haviland.

The design was not considered a total success when cottage style designs became popular in the 19th century; thus, the original Kirkbride building on campus dissolved by the early 20th century, and new buildings were installed.

The Dorothea Dix Library and Museum located on the campus facility recently closed, along with patient relocation with the closing of the facility in 2006. The library and museum were founded in 1853 for the recreation and education of patients, and was erected in the women’s reading room.

Visitations were by appointment only for the public, and held various historical artifacts of the history of insane asylums. Some artifacts were sent to be cleaned, others to various historical institutions. When we visited, the original library and museum were empty and under renovation within the interior.

Overall, we found the 200 acre facility much like a large educational campus, and in quite good shape due to state agencies occupying the facilities for office space. Harrisburg state hospital carries a warmer sense about it with small cottages dotted along the huge acreage, and hiking paths along dense forest patches.

The 50 remaining empty and occupied buildings are in very good condition set in a country setting. Perhaps this state reflects the true legacy of Dorothea Dix vision for better conditions for the underprivileged mentally ill. Not comprehending the later travesties, Ms Dix foresaw a comfortable space for the underprivileged, who previous to this era only saw the likes of poverty and neglect within hospital walls.

(Old post from older site)

All Material in this Photo Blog Gallery is Copyrighted & May not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without my permission.
All Rights Reserved.