Through the windows of the past
The body of work titled “Through the Windows of the Past” is the result of a three-year photographic exploration of abandoned and forgotten urban and rural spaces. The world of urbex and rurex is a world of houses, schools, hotels, factory halls, and other structures that were once part of everyday life—places that now stand as silent witnesses to a bygone era, where the silence of the walls and the traces of time speak louder than words. The focus is on spaces on the verge of oblivion—places that are decaying, yet still radiate silence and story. Each frame reveals traces of life, absence, and the relentless passage of time.
Through the camera lens, views through windows have been captured—views that lead into the past, into spaces abandoned by humans and gradually reclaimed by nature. The photographs explore what remains after people leave—when walls begin to crack, roofs begin to leak, and plants start growing through broken windows. More than thirty years of neglect, decay, and silent erosion are condensed into twelve photographic units that raise questions about the relationship between humans and space, memory, and transience. Despite human (in)activity, nature works tirelessly: it penetrates cracks, erases traces of presence, and shapes new landscapes of decay. Although there is an underlying sense of loss and impermanence, the photographs do not convey sadness, but rather a quiet dialogue with a disappearing world—a world we once built and then forgot.
Thematically and visually, the photographs rely on the motif of the view through a window—as a symbol of transition between interior and exterior, past and present, life and silence, dreaming and reality... The photographs are composed like still films: scenes captured in a moment, with a gaze reaching beyond the glass—to where memory fades and nature takes its course, regardless of human care or neglect. Frozen moments in which traces of former everyday life intertwine with today’s silence.
Here, windows are not merely spatial elements or a visual journey through abandoned places—they become a frame through which decay and the return of nature are observed, but also a starting point for contemplation and personal reflection. This collection of photographs is also an invitation to think: about time, forgetting, responsibility, and the persistence of nature. It offers not only a nostalgic look back, but also a visual dialogue between past and present, between present absence and nature’s relentlessness.
Pavle Kovač
