Writings of the End: Notes on an aesthetics of disappearance

Abstract

This article reflects on photography, the city, ruins, and memory through the question: What does it mean to archive what is disappearing? Drawing on the master's dissertation Formation in Ruins: Memory and Experience in Abandoned Spaces in the City of Criciúma (2023), it revisits a photographic archive of abandoned places to understand photography not as a means of preservation, but as an artistic practice capable of generating sensitive experiences of the city. Engaging with the work of Walter Benjamin, Georges Didi-Huberman, Francesco Careri, and Jacques Rancière, the article explores the notions of trace, image, walking, and archive. It argues that archiving does not prevent the disappearance of urban spaces; rather, it creates images that keep open the relationships between memory, absence, and imagination, shaping an aesthetics of disappearance.