Falling Houses Series - A Curious Story

These photos are part of an ongoing series entitled "Falling Houses".

The Photos were taken at an abandoned house in Illinois with a curious story. 
​In the 1980’s the couple who lived there, two women, disappeared. They were the owners of the house and the adjacent land which they farmed. A few locals claimed they had moved to somewhere in Ohio. Attempts to find them were never successful. They took nothing with them, even the clothes in their closets were all still there. Unopened mail was sitting on a desk in the living room. The piano had handwritten sheet music sitting ready for a performance. 
As time went by the house began to deteriorate and was eventually broken into by local teenagers. 
At some point a local farmer told me about the house and its mystery.  With his story in mind and real anticipation I went there. It was almost exactly as he described it albeit with some obvious vandalism. As I walked around to the back of the house I saw the back door was open. I stepped in to find the kitchen left in a state that appeared the owner would return at any moment. The kitchen table was set for four. Pots and pans were on the stove. An apron was draped over the back of a chair. Who were those forgotten expected guests in this silent abandoned house? 
A sudden rustling sound in the next room startled me and I cautiously peered around the doorway into the living room. A crow was sitting on the sill of a small broken window and quickly flew off as I approached. While everything was dust covered the house was for the most part fully intact. 
Over the course of a few years I went back each season to photograph the decline of the home and the destructive results of ongoing teenage angst. Each time I went the deterioration was obvious and I was struck by a sense of real sadness at what I saw, a life stopped and crumbling. To this date no one has ever discovered what happened to the owners. Eventually the vandals burned the house down. Nothing remains. 

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​DADA TV 

 
As time went by I returned to the house many times before it was destroyed and began to gather objects and place them in what was basically  assemplabges. The Dada TV is one of those.
​Click to enlarge.