Rebecca Lilith Bathory, previously briefly known as Rebecca Litchfield, is a British photographer, living in London. Her photographic series include ''Soviet Ghosts,''Joseph Flaherty,
Creepy photos of crumbling Soviet-era architecture
, Wired, 5 August 2014. Accessed 20 August 2014.Chris York,

, Huffington Post, 28 July 2014. Accessed 20 August 2014. ''Return to Fukushima''. Dark Tourism and ''Orphans of Time''.

Early life and education

Bathory was born in

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Stu-Sz#Su, location * S ...

, London. She graduated from

University for the Creative Arts The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in the south of England. It was formed in 2005 as University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester when the Kent Inst ...

with a first class degree in Graphic Design in June 2006. Between 2008 and 2010 she studied for a master's degree in Fashion Photography at

The London College of Fashion The London College of Fashion is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, in London, England. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate, short courses, study abroad courses and business-training in fashion, make-up, beauty-therap ...

, for which she was awarded a distinction. She exhibited her final masters project, ''Edenias'', at Mall Gallery in London. In 2014, she was awarded a Techne scholarship for a research PhD degree at the

University of Roehampton The University of Roehampton, London, formerly Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, is a public university in the United Kingdom, situated on three major sites in Roehampton, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Roehampton was formerly an e ...

to research the photography of

dark tourism Dark tourism (also Thana tourism (as in Thanatos), black tourism, morbid tourism, or grief tourism) has been defined as tourism involving travel to places historically associated with death and tragedy (event), tragedy. More recently, it was sugg ...

photography. She gained a PhD in Social Anthropology July 2022.

Photography

As Rebecca Litchfield, she recorded many abandoned locations within 10 countries of the former

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, including towns, factories, prisons, schools, monuments, hospitals, theatres, military complexes, asylums and death camps. Bathory's examines a society shrouded by the

cold war The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. Bathory's second book explores the nuclear meltdown in

Fukushima may refer to: Japan * Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture ** Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan ***Fukushima University, national university in Japan *** Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushim ...

. Photographed within the thirty mile exclusion zone, 2016 was the first time that residents of the town of Tomioka were given permission to return to their homes; Bathory was also given permission to photograph in the exclusion zone. Undertaking an emotional and thought provoking journey to Fukushima. Bathory presents never-before-seen images which provide a unique and moving meditation on human failure seen through the lens of an accomplished artist. Bathory’s images take you behind the scenes of the ghost town that is Fukushima, at turns heartbreaking and devastating. These photographs ask the question - what next for a nuclear future? . In 2016 Bathory photographed her third book ''Dark Tourism'', she travelled around the world to 20 countries to visit 100 dark tourist sites in the UK, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Italy, Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, India, USA, Indonesia, Ukraine and Cuba, to explore interesting historical areas of these dark parts of our history. The phrase dark tourism conjures up images and ideas of destinations associated with death, suffering, tragedy and the macabre. This kind of dark tourism is a niche for individuals and groups of like minded people that travel to the same destination for a similar experience, generally recording and taking home images of the unusual places that they visit as souvenirs, a holiday snap with a difference, whether it be dark destinations such as Auschwitz or Chernobyl, or local ossuaries and cemeteries. Photography is an intrusion in the flow of modern society; it fixes and frames and places our view of the world into a different format. Dark tourism is a very visual practice, as is tourism in general; you are not only going to experience the location, but to see it with your own eyes and in most cases photograph it to prolong the moment. In the case of dark tourists taking these still life ‘dark snaps’, the photography captures some of the images, ideologies and horrors which some would prefer to be lost forever. Bathory's fourth book ''Orphans of Time'', self-published, contains 200 colour photos of abandoned buildings. Since 2012 she travelled around the world for five years, seeking out beautiful locations featuring decay.

Publications

* * * *

Awards

* 2009: Professional Photographer of the Year 2009 Overall Winner, ''Professional Photographer'' magazine * 2009: Fashion category winner, Professional Photographer of The Year 2009, ''Professional Photographer'' magazine * 2014: Clapham Art Prize Winner, ''Clapham Art Prize'' award

Exhibitions

* 2016: ''Salon Del Mobile Milan Presentation,'' Salon Del Mobile, Milan. For

Moooi Moooi is a Dutch furniture, interior, and lighting modern design company. It was founded by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers in the Netherlands in 2001. Name and stated mission When Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers started Moooi in 2001, t ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bathory, Rebecca Photographers from London Living people English women photographers Alumni of the London College of Fashion Year of birth missing (living people)