Ghost Towns and Spaces Where No One Lives
Why do empty shopping malls and deserted airports fascinate us? Because they are monuments to a lost future.
Jacques Derrida’s concept of “time out of joint” becomes concrete in our physical environment. We live amidst ruins that were once new.
Liminal Spaces and Non-Places
Images of “liminal spaces” spreading across the internet—empty hotel corridors, deserted playgrounds, and foggy parking lots—are visual hauntology. They are “non-places” designed for flows of people. When the people leave, a strange, eerie atmosphere remains.
The Finnish Ghost Town is the Forest
Globally, there is talk of China’s massive “ghost cities,” built for millions but standing empty. In Finland, hauntology takes a different form: the quiet desolation of the countryside.
We do not have concrete ghost cities, as nature quickly reclaims abandoned buildings. But depopulating villages are still hauntological spaces: they are full of memories of a life that has moved elsewhere. They are a physical reminder of structural change and a promise (“the whole country will be kept inhabited”) that has become impossible to keep.
As Teppo Turkki wrote: “On the surface, everything looks normal and the same, but beneath the surface, nothing works or is as it was before.” On the level of space, this means we live in a world built for growth, but inhabited by stagnation.
