Thibaut Derien

Setanta Books 2026

Twenty years ago, Thibaut Derien began traveling across France, avoiding major roads and soulless suburban sprawl; garish signs, prefab buildings, uniform housing estates, endless roundabouts. Instead, he sought out the last remaining small shops: abandoned, silent witnesses of forgotten trades and fashions.

These empty storefronts — deserted and weathered by time —moved him. He photographed those that stirred a special kind of emotion, capturing the quiet dignity of their decay. They became the outlines of a ghost town, standing in quiet resistance to distant shopping centers and impersonal consumer hubs.

In this ghost city, shutters are drawn, doors sealed, windows bricked. The facades are stripped of depth, silencing what once made these places special: human connection, community, proximity.

48 Page softcover 21cm x 16cm book with card wraparound cover in an edition of 350 copies.