Wastelands

The nature of any society and its future can be read in its entrails – in what is left behind, what is discarded. Each creates, uses and casts aside its wastelands in very different ways and it seems that a proportion of every city is always wasteland. These neglected or abandoned places are fragile and ephemeral, a transient aspect of a changing, living city, yet development appears unable to clear them away for good, only to move them on to a different site. This book explores some of these wastelands that collectively form a sustained and permanent feature of the modern city. An artist and photographer, Dan Dubowitz originally trained as an architect. He is also a well-respected specialist public arts consultant and has worked on projects both in the UK and Europe. His photography has been exhibited in the UK, Italy and the United States. His last book Fascismo Abbandonato was published by Dewi Lewis and looks at the ‘colonia’ – holiday centres for children which were established on the northern Italian coast during the period of Mussolini’s Fascist regime (1923–43)