Totally Lost

Totally Lost in an online archive and an exhibition featuring party headquarters, military bases, bunkers, planned communities, and memorials for a total of over 2.600 photographs.

“Totally Lost” is an exhibition project curated by Spazi Indecisi that recounts the stories and maps the remains of the architectural heritage of Totalitarian Regimes in Europe through photography. A visual tale, without guides or historical preconceptions, it explores these architectural spaces as fragments to be reconnected, re-envisioning them as new places and as “democratic” subjects.

Top: Dušan Džamonja, Monument to the Revolution of the people of Moslavina, Podgarić, 1967. Photo Peter Franc and Mirna Pavlovic
Above: False cemetery in Ratonneau, Iles du Frioul. Photo Leonardo Crociani

Totally Lost is a collective photographic research project that has involved 186 photographers from all over Europe, mapping almost 300 “uncomfortable” places linked to Totalitarian Regimes and collecting over 2.600 photographs from over 25 nations. 

Pian dei Morti barrier, Passo Resia, Sud Tirol, 1938. Photo Marco Gioia

The European research, initiated by an open call, has investigated the relationship of these objects with the landscape, and the relationship with today’s social context, collecting and bringing to light very diverse places: factories, mines, power stations, government buildings, homes, places of propaganda and power, bunkers, resorts, radar antennas, monuments, memorials, planned communities, entertainment venues, Fascist compounds, sanatoriums, hospitals, and watchtowers.

Cement factory, Croazia, 1908. Photo Mirna Pavlovic

“Totally Lost is a developing path that poses questions” – says the association Spazi Indecisi – “will this architectural heritage ever be free from the ideology that produced it, becoming a container of new and democratic content?” Will it become archaeology? Clearly, Totally Lost does not desire to give answers, but to continue asking questions about our present and about the future of these places.

José Enrique Marrero Regalado, Abona Sanatorium, Abades, 1943. Photo Daniel Sánchez


9 – 25 September 2016
Totally Lost
curated by Spazi Indecisi
Casa del Mutilato, Acquedotto Spinadello, Casa del Fascio
Province of Forlì, Italy