MARCH 28, 2024 KATE MOTHES
All images © Thibaut Derien
Shuttered blinds and peeling paint don’t usually indicate an invitation, but for photographer Thibaut Derien, long-closed shops are well worth a stop.
Shuttered blinds, peeling paint, and aging doors don’t usually indicate an invitation, but for French photographer Thibaut Derien, the fading facades of long-closed shops are well worth a stop. In his ongoing series J’habite une ville fantôm, which translates to “I live in a ghost city,” he captures myriad eras and architectural details in storefronts ranging from cafes to photo studios to fishmongers, drawn to what he describes as a desire to “immortalize” them before they disappear for good.
Derien, who is also a musician, has traveled all over France, visiting countless small towns and villages along the way. He often avoids major highways, preferring country roads and local streets where development is slower. “I continue this series because I’m still touched each time I discover an old shop,” he tells Colossal, “always standing despite abandonment as a resistance to the modern world. I always think about people who spent their life behind those walls.”
A closed shop represents more than simply a bygone era or an empty facade for the artist, who is interested in capturing the individuality of each location in light of the homogeneity of today’s commercial developments. Derien looks closer: “First, it’s just a facade; you can think it’s sad, but if you look a little bit more you see old paintings, old mosaics, some ‘know-how’… Many commercial centers—all the same—have replaced the small shops, each one different.”
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