Eerie time warp collages of an abandoned high school in Detroit

The plight of Detroit has been well documented. Over the past 50 years the Motor City’s population and industry have plummeted, revealing the carcasses of its once fine infrastructure. Detroiturbex is a website created to “raise awareness of the social and economic challenges the city of Detroit faces” through a series of photographs of abandoned civic institutions, parks and neighbourhoods. Like photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s beautiful paean to the city’s disintegration, The Ruins of Detroit, the images on Detroiturbex hint at the ghosts of the city’s past.

Detroiturbex’s new series Cass Tech – Now and Then brings those ghosts to the fore by superimposing old photographs taken in the deserted Lewis Cass Technical High School onto shots of their current condition. Though well worn, the collage technique fits well these eerie scenes of basketball games and dances in dilapidated gymnasiums. A moving showcase of a city’s sad decay.