There is something uncanny in spaces where presence is implied but absence reigns-a door that used to open, corridors that once echoed with footsteps, walls that held lives now vanished. Hauntology, a term coined by Derrida, captures this spectral tension between what was, what is, and what might have been. Photographic art has become a rich field for exploring hauntological themes: abandoned buildings, forgotten signs, liminal thresholds, memory made visible. Below are some contemporary photographers whose work channels hauntology in powerful ways.

What is hauntology in photography?

Hauntology deals with ghosts-not only of the literal kind, but those of memory, loss, deferred futures, architectural decay, and the ripple effects of absence. Photographs are time-bound, yet they can evoke what is no longer there. In architecture, landscapes, or interiors left to decline, the invisible becomes visible: traces, textures, history.

Photographers to watch

Here are several artists whose work exemplifies hauntological themes, along with what they do, and why their images resonate in a spectral way.

1. Yuval Yairi

What he does. Yuval Yairi is an Israeli artist who makes photographs, video, and drawings. He often works with places laden with history-leper hospitals, abandoned villages, cheap hotel rooms, museums undergoing renovation.

How he works. In series such as Palaces of Memory, Yairi reconstructs memories via space. For example, he might take thousands of frames over time from a fixed position and combine them into one image, layering visible detail so that the final photograph feels like a memory unfolded.

Hauntological quality. Yairi’s work blurs temporality. The static image becomes a repository of many instants-of what was, what is, what remains. The viewer feels both observer and participant in the absence.

2. Stefano Cerio

What he does. An Italian photographer known for photographing deserted amusement parks, tourist infrastructure, and spaces of leisure emptied of people. Some of his series include Chinese Fun, Aqua Park, Night Games, etc.

Hauntological quality. These are familiar places-parks, funfairs, theme parks-designed for joy and crowd, now frozen. The emptiness intensifies the absurdity of their cheerful forms; colours, shapes, artificial joy become eerie when there is no one there. Cerio’s images make the future-past creep in: what was meant to delight now haunts.

3. Johnny Joo

What he does. American photographer focused on urban decay and derelict, historic architecture. He has documented abandoned buildings across the Rust Belt, empty amusement parks, mansions, etc. Publications include Empty Spaces: Photojournalism Through the Rust Belt and Americana Forgotten.

Hauntological quality. Joo’s images are rich in absence. Where many photographers focus on ruin purely as texture, Joo often places wrecked glamour (mansion interiors, architectural detail) against decay, which heightens the sense of “something lost but not forgotten.” Viewers are forced to imagine the lives that once inhabited these spaces.

4. Misty Keasler

What she does. Keasler’s practice spans socially significant documentary work and more uncanny spaces. One especially relevant project is Haunt (2017), where she photographs haunted houses / immersive horror attractions in the U.S. Her photographs explore the haunted attraction as space: set design, props, artificial lighting, costuming. A Hauntology of a ghost ride…

Hauntological quality. Haunted houses are deliberately constructed spectral spaces: they mimic dread, memory, and fear. Keasler works with ambient / low light, long exposures, detail: finding the uncanny in the designed spectacle and its artifice. Her images ask: what is real fear, what is performance, what remains after the show is over?

5. Michael Schwan

What he does. German photographer who travels Europe photographing abandoned buildings-castles, old hotels, theaters, universities. His work documents decay over time, interiors half-claimed by nature, structures once elaborate now slowly deteriorating.

Hauntological quality. Schwan’s compositions foreground what is falling apart: peeling paint, broken windows, remnants of furniture. The neglect is the subject. These are places left behind by people; but the human presence lingers in the material traces. His images allow a meditation on time’s passage and what is left when purpose is gone.

6. Brendon Burton

What he does. Burton works with landscapes and abandoned / forgotten places, emphasising liminality. His images are haunting, lonely, atmospheric: there is often decay or dereliction, or spaces of transition (thresholds, roads, outbuildings) in his work.

Hauntological quality. Burton’s settings are often “in between” – neither fully wilderness nor fully built; neither fully inhabited nor totally empty. They invite a feeling of unease, of being caught in a moment between what was and what might be.

7. Mari Boman

What she does. Based in London (UK), Mari Boman has created work around “ghost signs”-faded advertising painted onto buildings, now half-erased by time or renovation. Her project Liminal Space: past/presence shows these signs, often cryptic, over worn walls.

Hauntological quality. Ghost signs are a particularly potent hauntological motif: they are visible traces of commercial, social, architectural life that are half-forgotten. We pass them by, often invisible, but Boman forces us to see the palimpsest: the layering of past over present. The signs exist in a liminal threshold.

Key themes & methods

From these artists, some shared threads emerge in hauntological photographic work:

• Liminality of space. Corridors, empty hotels, abandoned parks, ghost signs-all examples of spaces in transition: unused, waiting, or in decay.
• Absence + presence. The absence of people but presence of evidence: personal objects, peeling paint, architectural detail.
• Time made visible. Decay, rust, fading colours, erosion, overgrowth: all material markers of time’s effect.
• Memory & nostalgia. Some work evokes longing or melancholia for what once was; others unsettle with what might have been or what is being forgotten.
• Photography as layering. Some artists layer time (e.g. composite frames), others use long exposures, ambient light, analogue/digital hybrid methods to emphasise texture and shadow, to evoke ghostliness.

Why hauntology matters now

In an age of rapid change-urban renewal, climate crisis, pandemics, shifting economies-hauntological photography offers pause. It reminds us of what is lost, what we choose to forget, what infrastructure fails. It provokes ethical questions: who decides what to preserve, what to raze, what to remember? It also reflects inner psychological states-unease, nostalgia, grief-that resonate in uncertain times.

Questions for reflection

• What do we feel when we enter a space that was once joyful but is now deserted?
• How does photography transform absence into a presence?
• In which ways do these images mirror broader social, political or environmental shifts?
• How do we balance the aesthetic allure of decay with ethical implications (e.g. trespass, safety, preservation)?