LuxUrbex - Urban Exploration and Urbex Photography in Luxembourg

I am happy to announce that I have been asked by the Head of the Department of Contemporary Art at the “Manege” Central Exhibition Hall to exhibit 28 of my pictures at the invitation-only exhibition "Saint-Petersburg Photo Vernissage 2010". I will personally be in Saint-Petersburg for the Vernissage and the opening will be at 2 o'clock PM after a small press conference. Most probably I'll give a Master Class about my photography and technique during the week I'll be there.

The theme of the exibition will be "TREND" in it's broader sense.

«Trends - a mirror of history, and it  always follows the political events. Fashion - it is not clothing, it's a way of life. Trends - is what you eat and drink, what you wear, where you go to relax, what furniture is in your house, what kind of dog you own, what phrases you use , trends for mobile phones, trends in  computer models, the trend for Japanese restaurants, the trend for green tea, which hit Russia in the past five years, etc., etc.» --- Alexander Vasilyev

At the heart of trends lies an individual style, and its world - a self-contained space, absorbing a wide range of phenomena. Through them people expresses their attitude to external forms of culture: lifestyle, serving and table manners, cars, clothing, thus trying to show their place in society, their sexuality, location, class, status level and belonging to a particular group.
Photocamera gives us an opportunity to capture different aspects of fashion, its endless cycles and change of artistic images, which always embody the eras image in clothing.

This subject gives participants wide opportunities for philosophical reflections and artistic self-expression.

Destruction of the relics of the past and closure of the mines leads to the end of an era here in Luxembourg. This evolution has not begun recently. For many years now our industrial patrimony is being destroyed and closed. Having lived my life in a region of Luxembourg that shaped the whole image of this country and the whole greater region, it is very sad for me to see all those relics being closed and destroyed, that gave testimony of the hard work that our ancestors have achieved for our prosperity.

Many associations have fought to preserve some of these industrial monuments, but the politicians don't seem to be interested to pay homage to our grandfathers and grandmothers that worked hard for this country. Our neighboring countries are still working hard to preserve some of these souvenirs and to convert them to industrial museums as a testimonial of those years that gave us the prosperity and quality of life we enjoy to have nowadays. But exactly this prosperity has brought us to forget about those of us that worked hard and sacrificed their lives for us. But this behavior seems to be limited to the country of Luxembourg. The politicians in Luxemburg spurn these monuments and convert them to vulgar decoration objects for megalomanic developments as it has been done in Esch/Belval. Sad... but true...

The latest news I got is about the closure of the iron ore mine called "Flora". The last load of iron ore left this huge underground world called the Montrouge in 1997. It was iron ore that went from the french part of this wonderful underground labyrinth. I do not want to say that it is important to keep those places accessible but it is sad to see the entrances buried under a pile of rocks and earth. Therefore I have now decided to show the pictures from inside this huge mine publicly. I didn't have done so before because I didn't want to incite unexperienced spelunkers to visit those places.

The pictures (and a small captivating movie) can be found under Mine Montrouge in the Industrial Speleology section.

There have not been new explorations since this week-end because I was sick over the last few weeks. Fortunately I am back for good and ready for new explorations. That's what I did already twice this week-end to a closed, but not abandoned, hospital in Germany. I first went there with Michael and his girlfriend together with Carina and Gennaro. Today I returned back together with some very nice guys from Philadelphia (USA), Matt, Kevin and Mark together with two friends from the Netherlands, Martino and Bart, and Gennaro. Both explorations were very short although the place is really huge, but there are not so many things to see there. You may have a look at the first pictures in the Krankenhaus gallery under Public Infrastructure.... As always... stay tuned... more pictures will follow shortly.

And may be you should also have a look in the Centrale U Gallery. I have added some pictures and I am still processing some others. But due to my sickness I was not really motivated to work a lot on post-processing.

2 Weeks ago I had an interview about urbex photography with the luxembourgish TV channel RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg for a documentary show called "Top Secret". This show has been broadcast yesterday on TV and those of you that have missed it or do not receive RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg may have a look at the whole show on RTL or preview only the Interview by clicking here.

I'd like to thank the crew of RTL for this well done objective coverage of urban exploration.

Being bound to stay at home due to some unfortunate circumstances, I have decided to process some more pictures and make some research about the new "Urbex-Trend", to post a new article about this trend in the FAQ on Urban Exploration and to make some minor updates to the layout of the website.

As already mentioned, I have processed some more shots I have taken in ECVB. And.... as always... don't forget to get back regularly because I am always processing older shots from my unprocessed pictures that are still waiting their turn to be added into the galleries. One of the latest pictures I have posted on Flickr dates from August 2008.

I am very happy to announce that I have been invited to be the guest of the month on the webpage of www.talkurbex.com. I hope you enjoy the interview. And many thanks for having invited me.

And don't forget to take a look at the Centrale "U" Gallery. I have added some updates when I was there together with Edy, Gennaro, Philippe, Andy and Simone. (Yes I know, we could have been a little football team but the central was large enough for all of us to work at ease.)