Paris is a city that celebrates its beauty, its history, and its people, but exclusively some. Beneath the facade lie its forgotten spaces and, with that, its forgotten communities.
“Echos of the Abandoned” explores the silenced relationship between what a city cares about and what it cares for. Shot entirely from a first-person perspective, this video montage documents the hidden silence within a loud city, where boundaries blur between the living and the left-behind.
Through this video installation, it ties my interest in forgotten communities— immigrants, the unhoused, minority groups and how Paris specifically erases these audiences in urban spaces. Through research and documentation, I have observed how an urban city like Paris chooses to engage with minority audiences selectively, preserving some history while letting others disappear. Who is remembered and who is abandoned?
30 second video on loop
3 different abandoned locations tiled together to form one video montage.
Top: Hotel Dieu (abandoned hospital)
Middle: Abandoned school
Bottom: La Petite Ceinture (abandoned train line)
Hyena sculpture made with abandoned objects found on the site.
Made by Vhe Chandler; inspired by Fran Lock’s “Hyena, Jackal, Dog!” with its visions of the hyena: scavenger, survivor, myth. Comparing the hyena to the explorer, stalking the space—part ghost, part guest, never fully welcome, never fully absent.
