Ruinous Portal

Matt Feldman's Ruinous Portal is a photo book and sound installation created as a culmination of ongoing research into the various abandoned towns and gold mines in the south-western United States.

Many of these ghost towns were established during the gold rush era and subsequently fell into decline as a result of the devaluation of gold and silver in 1893. Most of these towns are sparsely documented in written history due to poor record keeping and their remote locations. It is therefore unlikely an exhaustive list of these settlements will ever be complete.