Abandoned Images

Broadway avenue in downtown Los Angeles holds an extraordinary collection of twelve once-luxurious and now abandoned film-palaces, built between 1910 and 1931. In most cities worldwide, such a concentration of cinemas would have been demolished long ago – here however the buildings have survived the end of film-projection intact, some of their interiors ruined and gutted, others transformed and re-used as churches, nightclubs and storage spaces. Stephen Barber's Abandoned Images: Film and Film's End begins with an exploration of these remarkable derelicts, and broadens to ask questions about the abandonment of film itself.