The Blue Room

The Blue Room, Eugene Richards's first book in colour, is a moving and eloquent study of the abandoned and forgotten houses of rural America. Abandoned houses stand mute and solitary in out-of-the-way places wherever, it's been said, things haven't worked out for people. To those quickly passing by, the timeworn structures can be seen as fearful places, places to avoid. Yet there are those who are inexorably drawn to them. To Eugene Richards, they are heirlooms, evidence of past lives, time machines. Over the course of three and a half years, travelling thousands of miles on the backroads of America, Richards has created a body of photographs that speaks of the beauty of these houses and inspires us to imagine the lives of the people who once lived in them. The Blue Room is a personal journey, a way of seeing, and a meditation on the fragility of life and the transient nature of things.