Fantastic State of Ruin by David Zurick
This book tells the story of the painted towns of Shekhawati in rural Rajasthan, India. For centuries, the painted buildings served the towns as trading houses, pleasure palaces, temples, caravansaries, and private homes. Following independence, the descendants of the merchant families left Shekhawati for India's burgeoning cities, abandoning their opulent structures. Some were left in the charge of caretakers; squatters took up residence in many; most simply remain vacant. The buildings have slowly deteriorated over time, ravaged by climate and neglect, and now lie scattered among the desert settlements as an elegiac collection of beautiful living ruins--a crumbling open-air gallery set amid the ordinary affairs of small town life. This book portrays the fascinating ruinous beauty of the painted towns, and, along the way, provides an intimate look at life and landscape on the arid fringes of Rajasthan. This world, too, is fading, and so the book's photographs, in the end, are a visual study of both place and society at the edge of time.David Zurick is a geographer, writer, and photographer whose interests include political ecology, landscape study, and conservation. He is the author or coauthor of such books as Errant Journeys: Adventure Travel in a Modern Age, Himalaya: Life on the Edge of the World, and Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya. Zurick is Foundation Professor of Geography at Eastern Kentucky University and teaches at the University of Kentucky.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781940743400 |
| ISBN 10 | 1940743400 |
| Title | Fantastic State of Ruin |
| Author | David Zurick |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oro Editions |
| Year published | 2018-10-15 |
| Number of pages | 176 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |