Left Behind

The roof of a light-blue car, nestled among the spreading fronds of wild ferns and protected by lush green branches. A run-down wooden shack in a snowy landscape, its once brightly colored paint now dull and peeling. Two rusty freight car frames that blend seamlessly into their surroundings. Lonely and abandoned, useless and redundant, these urban castaways stand alone in vast landscapes, devoid of human life—in places where they do not really belong.

Photographer Friederike Brandenburg follows the isolated traces of civilization in places otherwise presumed to represent a pristine, untouched state of nature. Beyond the well-traveled roads, in shady clearings and wide-open fields, she uncovers the objects discarded by human society, revealing their singular aesthetic qualities and sometimes almost absurd presence. Her photographs visualize the paradoxical relationship between beauty and decay.