Beach Motel - OCADU Installation

Here's an installation shot of my Beach Motel series, complete with the keys to each of the nine rooms.

For the full-sized images click here.

Artist Statement:

Beach Motel - Oliver Pauk

A series of long-exposure photographs taken at night in nine different rooms of the abandoned Beach Motel in Etobicoke, Ontario. These images reveal a realization, at which I arrived, during my research for the project. I began to understand that my interest in this building (and in others in similar states), is not only aesthetic, but largely, nostalgic.

I believe that it is possible to begin missing something before it is actually gone; in a sense, to feel the loss of something in one’s life, preemptively. My fascination with Beach Motel is a result of this. And the photographs reflect my situation by showing an individual, overwhelmed and lost in the sensation of nostalgic longing.

After 77 years in operation, Beach Motel was closed in 2009 when the City of Toronto decided to increase their land taxes from $80 000 to $380 000 per year. This motel is but one of several, that once made up this "vacation strip" on the shores of Lake Ontario. It will soon be demolished to allow for the construction of a high-rise condominium building similar to the others populating the length of Toronto’s waterfront.

Model: Sally Hood Ranscombe