The world I explore is a world left behind.



Castles once built to house the insane & unwanted now sit useless & decaying. The years of neglect have turned these dead buildings back into living creatures. They are beautiful & dangerous entities that sense and react to your presence. One wrong step and you are just another one of those stories.



I grew up right in the middle of the reform of State Hospitals. It was a time to look ahead and not take a second look back. This probably explains why it took me years to understand what  my parents threats to "put me away" actually meant. History was happening around me but I had no clue.



Fast forward ten years. Attending college in Boston, I needed to fulfill an elective course and signed up for Psychology 101. No big deal. Our second class, Dr. John Gostan walked in without a word, turned the projector on and dimmed the lights.



That night changed my life.



Filmed in 1967, "Titicut Follies" had been illegal to own in the state of Massachusetts since its release in 1968. It is the only American film banned from distribution for reasons other than obscenity or national security. Dr. John had to drive five hours to upstate New York to get his copy on VHS. Filmed in 1967, it documented life in Bridgewater State Hospital, a prison hospital for the criminally insane. It is also the reason for major reform in State Hospitals and the care they provided, "Titicut Follies" brought to light the (mis)treatment of these patients. It captured, in film, how rather than being treated like human beings, patients were handled in a manner more fitting of cattle. The end result was a complete reevaluation of psychiatric treatment that eventually led to the mass deinstitutionalization which closed many State Hospitals across the country.



I learned that had he been born 50 years earlier, my brother would have ended up in one of these places, only when it came to children they were called State Schools, Training Schools, or Schools for the Feeble-Minded. Children with developmental delays were sent away here. Their parents were told they couldn't be taught, that the best thing they could do for their child was to make them comfortable and get on with their lives. Autism was identified in the early 1900's, but didn't become widely known until the 1990's. Children who were thought to have mental retardation were called feeble-minded and classified into three groups depending on their IQ; idiots, imbeciles or morons.



I enter these buildings with a great deal of reverence. Walking the silent halls, I hear the stories of the people who lived their lives within them. Patients. Staff. Administrators. Visitors. They are all still there. Trapped within the walls, longing for someone to listen.



Very few people are privileged enough to see the places I explore. I feel honored to know these buildings intimately, as close friends. With each visit, something's always changed. A chair has moved across the room. Floors I've walked  countless times have collapsed under the weight of desertion. Colors change with seasons, moods change with the sun. With every visit I see the earth is gradually reclaiming what is rightfully hers, slowly healing the pain that human beings have brought upon each other.



My photographs are as much miracles of light as they are sweat & blood. While making the images you see in this book, I have felt floors shift beneath my feet and fallen through them on other occasions. I've silently hid, holding my breath in innumerable attics, tunnels, rooms and crevices. Other times, I've breathlessly ran through dark tunnels and climbed into the most unstable parts of buildings. I have felt wire pierce my hand, only to continue to pull myself up and over what I was hanging from. I've fallen 16 feet to meet the ground with a broken arm, dislocated shoulder & three dislocated ribs. My cameras have all remained unharmed in my care.



The beauty and history I see in these buildings are what draw me in. The stories they tell and the way they make me feel are will keep me coming back.