"Ulteriora: Abandonment Photography and Exploration in Southern California"
2004-11-21 until 2004-12-17
The Office
Huntington Beach, CA, USA United States of America

In recent years the act of exploring in our already settled and developed urban landscapes has taken on a new meaning. People have taken notice of their surroundings and mustered a profound curiosity for areas deemed off limits, ignored or abandoned. These people have come to identify themselves as urban explorers. With cameras and flashlights in hand they set out to document these little seen areas.

The majority are not professional photographers, yet they are resourceful and cunning in their craft. They habitually put themselves in the awkward situation of potential and sometimes inevitable confrontation with property owners and/or the authorities, crawl through sordid and unforgiving conditions, and even put their physical well being on the line just to see what's behind a door, over a fence, in an abandoned building, or underneath a manhole. Their intention is not steal or vandalize but merely to seek out and find the hidden realms of our human made environments. Trespassers? Yes. Yet they hold nothing but the deepest respect and appreciation for the places they visit, operating on the simple but effective code used by hikers for generations: "Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints."

Ulteriora gathers the collective documentation of two of these explorers in Southern California and presents them to you through photography and video.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of California

Other Important Exhibitions in California