Comissioned by The Future of Ghosts Magazine
In his seminal 1995 book, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, French thinker Marc Augé coined the term ‘non-place,’ which refers to spaces with erased and/or shifting histories and identities.
‘Non-places’ are out-of-joint spaces found in some form of existential limbo, infrastructural and architectural fossils that remain, nevertheless, pervasively resonant within contemporary culture. Through their ubiquity, they embody the spirit of anonymity, a spectre of the past that torments and inhabits the urban habitat.
Augé’s concept functions as a theoretical backdrop for Romanian photographer Horatiu Sovaiala and his interaction with the remnants of the past that are still present in public space. By definition, the ‘non-place’ lacks anthropological attributes, and Sovaiala’s visual research feeds off this ambiguity.
In his codified landscapes, various spectres coexist and isolation should not be mistaken for emptiness or nothingness. These are not void territories, but urban ghosts in perpetual sociocultural purgatory, regulated by the rules of liminality: spaces of the inbetween, haunted and haunting alike.