Outstanding Photos of Portugal's Abandoned Places, by Dimitri Bourriau

France-based photographer and graphic designer Dimitri Bourriau is a “multifaceted self-taught artist” with a passion for urban exploration and mainly abandoned places. Last time we featured on Cultartes his take on Buzludza, the “Bulgarian abandoned Soviet spaceship”, an astonishing photo-series of one of most mysterious architectural structures from Eastern Europe.

“It’s a chance to discover what man has deserted; the abandonment of, for example, castles, hospitals, palaces or churches”, the photographer told us. “The story is different every time with tales of places filled with life that, in the space of a few years, would return to solitude. It is undoubtedly this contradiction that is at the heart of each of my photos”.

In the space of a hundredth of a second, I try to bring these places back to life. I bring my personal interpretation of the place and try to tell a story with every shot.

Always looking to reveal abandoned parallel dimensions, Dimitri just came back from Portugal with a handful of seemingly forgotten places, such as: Dictator Villa, Green Palacio or Cine-Teatro St. Barbre. The photo-series, an ode to symmetry and beautiful grim, is just as spot on as the previous one – giving us both a chance rediscover long-lost history gems and food for thought on what solitude actually feels like.

Dimitri: “This is my first travel to Portugal – the search for and the finding of most beautiful abandoned places, palace, churches, cinema’s, crypts… on Portugal”.