Silent Hill Shadowbox

So I've started putting together some things for a Silent Hill Shadowbox. I love the video game series. Its so deep and has such atmosphere, its hard not to get totally sucked into it. The 2nd one was my favorite, although I've probably played the 3rd one the most. The 4th was a disappointment, and the 5th just didn't have enough puzzles and was too actiony for me. Too Americanized. I loved that eeriness you get from knowing that you ARE alone in a town that totally hates you (in the words of Yahtzee game reviewer)

I love the beauty of the rust covered world, the sound of scraping metal, the darkness and the isolation of it all. I went to an art show a while back because mc chris was performing and they, as an exhibit, had a small warship that had sank in the Hudson river. They resurfaced it and cleaned it out, showing it for all to see. Walking through that rusted shell I felt like I was actually there IN Silent Hill.


The weekend before my wedding my mother came up to New york city and wanted to see Ellis Island. I didn't know much about it.

It was beautiful! Apparently after they stopped using it sometime in the early 1900s it was completely abandoned. Then in the 1980's a photographer came to the island and took pictures of the abandoned buildings. So much history, so much pain, and so much isolation, torture, went into those buildings. As you walked through the empty halls, hearing your footsteps sound off down the long and empty hallways you could feel the emotion in the walls. These people were completely isolated from everything they knew.

"Generally those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. However more than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities."- Ellis Island, wikipedia

Its all quite sad. But again- you could FEEL it in the air. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Same with the warship.

Some photos I had taken to use for my box. I am in love with them and use them for great inspiration. I wish I could, but most places don't allow this, to just walk through the old abandoned buildings- like the contagious diseases hospital on Ellis Island (which was closed) or even the abandoned Norwich insane Asylum.