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A Photography, Video and Sound Exhibition of Abandoned Buildings in Rural Romania
Explore Gallery01 / Concept
About Us
Project Overview
LEFT TO DECAY is an immersive exhibition by visual artist Adam Soch — photography, video, and collected objects from 210 abandoned sites across rural Romania. Large-format prints, four-wall video projection, and remnants gathered from the sites themselves. A project about what was left behind, and what it costs to forget it.
LEFT TO DECAY creates space for remembering what was, understanding why it was lost, and imagining how we care for what remains.
02 / Gallery
Explore Gallery
Fragments of
What Remains
Selected photographs from the archive. Each site documented, catalogued, and prepared for exhibition.
All content © Adam Soch. Unauthorized use is not permitted.
5 / 13 photographs
03 / Video Gallery
Stories of
Forgotten Places
Experience the textures of abandonment in motion. Each filmic fragment reveals close studies of rusted hardware, fractured light, and household objects draped in dust, assembling quiet narratives of absence and memory. Shot and mastered for projection, these videos move slowly through rooms and exteriors to preserve atmosphere, listen for echoes, and allow the sites themselves to tell their histories.
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DOFTANA - was a Romanian prison, built in 1895
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Mikes Castle in Ruines
All content © Adam Soch. Unauthorized use is not permitted.
04 / Artist
Adam Soch / Visual Artist
Meet the Artist:Adam Soch
I was born in Romania and left at twenty-four. I spent the next four decades in Los Angeles — working as a video artist and multimedia producer, creating immersive projections for major theater productions, and collaborating with the late visionary director Reza Abdoh. My work entered the permanent collection of MOCA Los Angeles and was shown at MoMA PS1 New York, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, and the Music Center of Los Angeles, among others.
For 33 years I have produced video segments for Classic Arts Showcase, a twenty-four-hour arts television channel broadcasting across the United States. Now available on the internet.www.classicartsshowcase.org
Then I came back to Romania.
Seven years ago I returned to Cluj-Napoca — the country I was shaped by, and had watched change from a distance for most of my adult life. What I found in the countryside stopped me: hundreds of abandoned homes, manor houses, castles, and churches, disappearing quietly, with no one watching. I started photographing them. I could not stop.
LEFT TO DECAY is what that work became.
Stunning, remarkable, and compelling…
Los Angeles Times
05 / Professional Access
Curator Portal
Curator Portal
Explore the exhibition archive, organized for curators, gallery directors, and professional collaborators.
06 / Contact
Get in touch
Get in touch
Whether you are a curator, researcher, or collaborator — I would like to hear from you. Exhibition available for gallery and museum booking. Ready for touring / Adaptable installation layouts available.