KOEN COLPAERT

Non-Places

2018 — ongoing

In 1992, French anthropologist Marc Augé coined the term non-place to describe spaces of transit and anonymity — airports, motorways, hotel chains — where no organic social life takes root and identity dissolves. We pass through them rather than inhabit them, suspended briefly between origin and destination.

What happens when a non-place is abandoned? It does not become a place. It becomes something stranger: a ruin without memory, a shell whose only history was the absence of history.

The abandoned petrol station is the ultimate non-place. Built purely in relation to movement, it existed as a pause, a transaction, a logo visible from the road. When the traffic stopped, nothing remained to mourn. These photographs document the strange afterlife of spaces that were never quite alive.

Koen Colpaert is a Belgian photographer, born in Ghent in 1970, with a passion for urban exploration. His work takes a technical and documentary approach, heavily influenced by renowned artists like Bernd and Hilla Becher, Candida Höfer, and Robert Polidori.

He often explores "non-places"—locations that serve transient purposes, such as empty buildings, abandoned industrial sites, or spaces devoid of human interaction. He uses lighting and composition to bring a sense of finality and stillness to these spaces, often evoking emotions tied to isolation and decay. His work straddles the line between art and historical documentation, revealing the unseen narratives within urban landscapes.

ig: @koencolpaert

me@koencolpaert.be