Decay due to depopulation. by Marjolein Zijlstra

About "Decay due to depopulation."

by Marjolein Zijlstra

About the artwork

At home and abroad, especially in suburban and agricultural areas, as a result of depopulation, you regularly come across buildings that fall into disuse as a result of long-term vacancy and eventually become uninhabitable and decay into a state where demolition is the only sensible option. This step, too, is often not taken because demolition involves costs and then, after a long time, nature takes over the former building and turns it into new nature. The masonry bricks that will slowly come loose are experienced as a mountain and plants and animals find a welcome home here. In southern European countries, the situation is so serious in several regions's that there is now talk not of an empty building, but of ghost villages. Villages and hamlets where no human mortal lives anymore, where animals have often taken over the village as shelter and housing. Photographically, they are places to wonderfully indulge in, making images of the fusion of nature with former property, but they are also sad circumstances as livability deteriorates and decay increasingly contributes to the abandonment of those areas.
Meanwhile, there are developments in which people are trying to persuade wealthy investors from abroad to invest there and breathe life back into former villages, to offer future prospects again, and yes, there are examples where this initiative brings a positive turnaround in this situation, so there is hope for revival of these old dilapidated villages.