They once served as places of worship and have been left to their own devices for decades: musty chapels, looted churches and dilapidated monastery walls. The French photographer, Francis Meslet, who studied design at the University of the Arts in Nancy, has a penchant for “lost places”, for places shrouded in mystery that are left to decay.
This includes industrial plants that are no longer required, such as steelworks, cooling towers and weaving mills. Or cinemas, theaters and other stages that have not been used for decades. He laboriously researched and sought out morbid motifs of this kind in order to document their disintegration process photographically with the camera.
In his illustrated book, which he “Mind Travels“calls, he has depicted such ruins and also disused sanatoriums, hospitals, car cemeteries, villas and castles. One category stands out in particular: the sacred buildings. The empty, dusty and collapsing chapels look to the viewer like an allegorical picture for the loss of meaning the institution of the Church.
All of Francis Meslet’s paintings are deserted
Mass has not been held here, confession taken or a child baptized here for years. There is no longer any singing, no organ playing or a monastery choir singing a chorale. Instead, moisture and destruction, church mice and pigeons have moved in.
With his book “Mind Travels”, Francis Meslet wanted to create a total work of art. His high-quality photo book is complemented by music: The end of the book is accompanied by an audio CD containing a very special “Mind Travels Compilation” with selected pieces of music. Each chapter corresponds to one of the total of nine tracks – the perfect sound when leafing through and immersing yourself in a morbid world.
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