LOST RELIGION

LOST RELIGION is an urbex photography project dedicated to abandoned churches in Italy and across Europe. Through rural chapels, forgotten sanctuaries and empty parish churches, the project documents religious places that have lost their original function and are now suspended between memory, decay and nature.

Many of these abandoned churches once stood at the heart of small villages, where bells marked daily life, celebrations, mourning and community rituals. Today, their silence reflects wider changes: the decline of church attendance, especially among younger generations, the lack of funds to restore and maintain historic religious buildings, the shortage of priests and new vocations, and the depopulation of rural areas where a church was once a constant presence.

This photographic research does not judge the loss of faith, nor does it romanticize abandonment. It observes what remains when communities move away, when worship stops, and when sacred architecture is left without care. Frescoes peel from damp walls, altars collapse under dust and debris, vegetation enters through broken floors, and light falls from damaged roofs like an accidental liturgy.

By exploring abandoned religious sites, “lost religion” becomes a visual archive of forgotten sacred spaces and a reflection on cultural change in Europe. Each image captures the fragile border between devotion and neglect, history and disappearance, human belief and the slow return of nature..

FORGOTTEN STONES: RELICS OF THE COMMUNIST ERA

Scattered across Bulgaria, the monumental relics of the Communist era stand as silent witnesses to a time of ideological fervor and political ambition.  These monuments, sculptures, and murals were erected during communist period to assert the dominance of the new political order, immortalizing key figures and pivotal events that the regime sought to enshrine in the collective memory. Using these grandiose symbols, the regime attempted to craft a narrative of unity, progress, and unshakable power.

However, after the fall of communism in 1989, the existence of these structures came into question. Many were dismantled or altered to align with new political realities, while others were abandoned, their significance diminished to fragments of a past that many Bulgarians preferred to forget. Yet, some monuments remain, enduring as visual testimonies to one of the most controversial chapters in Bulgaria’s modern history.

This photographic project, “Forgotten stones: relics of the Communist Era”, seeks to document and preserve the memory of these historical structures, many of which now face abandonment, decay, or deliberate destruction. By capturing their current state, whether overgrown with vegetation, weathered by time, or forgotten in remote locations, the project aims to highlight the tension between their original purpose and their present reality. This visual archive aspires not only to reflect on the past but also to provoke conversations about the preservation of cultural and historical landmarks in a rapidly changing world.

MACHINAE OBLITAE

The machine, stated philosopher Pierre-Maxime Schuhl in the middle of the last century, ‘has fulfilled its promise: it has effectively increased man’s power, made him almost the master and possessor of nature, increased well-being and the standard of living’. Having become obsolete, the machines mentioned by Schuhl were then only minimally preserved for the memory of future generations, more often destroyed, sometimes forgotten.

This project focuses on some industrial relics that contributed to the progress of our country. Abandoned in favour of more modern machinery, they are now reclaimed by nature, as if reabsorbed in its eternal ‘growth cycle’.

The jury of the third edition of the AIPAI PHOTO CONTEST is pleased to award a mention to the photographic project ‘Machinae Oblitae’ with the following motivation:

“Machines from a symbol of human power and domination to fragile relics are at the centre of Lorenzo Rosa’s reflection that immortalises a world abandoned by man and any living being. After the Anthropocene, nature has regained dominion over the earth.
The contrast between iron and green, between rust and leaves, pays homage to those fragments of industrial history that have shaped our country, punished in the oblivion to which they have often been destined. These shots invite us to reflect on our responsibility to preserve the material traces of our development, transforming them into memory and testimony for the future”.