Sunday 27 May 2012

geisterstรคdte

Der Spiegel’s English-language stories section reports on an exhibition in Berlin about contemporary ghost-towns and the deliberate choices and accidents of history that are creating the phenomenon.

One nearly abandoned town featured in the museum’s profiles is Centralia in Pennsylvania, which became depopulated due to trash burning on this day in 1962 that got out of control and spread to a network of underground shafts of a disused coal mine. The area became unlivable (and restricted due to concerns over health and safety) and the fire is still smoldering. The coincidence of the timing between the anniversary and the opening of the exhibit caught my attention initially, and I found that although authentic ghost towns are relatively rare and Centralia unique, eternal coal dust fires are not, and there is one to visit just outside of Dudweiler (DE/EN) in the Saarland that has been stoked since early Baroque times. The town’s fate inspired the horror film Silent Hill and has held attention and the imagination over the past half a century. The exhibition explores what piques this fascination for the recently abandoned, decommissioned and maybe these mementos mori forces one to contemplate how long our presence can linger in a place without us.