Concrete Playground

We only need to look at where horror films usually take place in order
to realise that the environment is always a contributing factor to the
suspense. It is the deserted and vacant location where our psychological
impulse to think the worst is heightened and exercised. And so in this way
could we not say that unoccupied space leaves our imaginations free to explore
the more treacherous images our brain can conjure up?

Strange Land, a collaborative project initiated by John A Douglas, explores the haunted landscape of the ghost town Glen Davis, recreating scenes
and characters in order to reveal the history of this desolate landscape. As
the wise Wikipiedia reports, Glen Davis was a town that became the centre of an
oil shale industry from 1938 to 1952, closing down when crude shale oil wasn’t
needed (when the Second World War ended). Yet while these are the facts,
something tells me Strange Land is more interested in accessing our
imaginations and playing with our unconscious.