Empty fountains. Quiet corridors. Shuttered storefronts. Once bustling centers of a city’s social scene, malls aren’t fixtures of everyday life as they were in generations past. But for many, the nostalgia lives on for these places.
Akron native Jessica Anshutz grew up three miles from Rolling Acres Mall and jokes that it was her childhood home.
“My dad is a bricklayer and one of his very first jobs was working at Rolling Acres during the building of the mall,” Anshutz said. “So quite literally from the first bricks of that place, my family has been involved. It was always a presence in my life.”
Anshutz started photographing malls in 2016 with the intention of starting a daily creative practice. She had grown up with a camera in her hands, and she always had an interest in buildings and architecture.
“I ended up driving by Rolling Acres on the way to my mom’s house,” she said, which at the time promoted a thought to take pictures of the old Kaufmann’s building. By that time, the mall had been sitting empty for nearly a decade.
“Every season I would go and take different pictures because there were trees growing up in the parking lot, and the leaves would change,” Anshutz said. “And it was an interesting juxtaposition of this decay, but also life from plants.”
Her penchant for nonstop curiosity led her to research more malls in the area, and she soon found herself at the doors of Canton Centre Mall. There was a corridor of the complex that was still open then, and walking inside brought a flood of memories and emotions.
“You’re in this space that’s familiar,” Anshutz said, going back to that moment. “You can look at the storefronts and know from the colors and patterns what store used to be there. But all of the plants were dead, the fountain was empty. It smelled old and moldy and musty. But still, it was a mall. And that was the one where I thought, ‘Yes. This is what I need to be doing. There's clearly something happening here, and I want to capture this.’”
Since then, Anshutz and her husband, Kurt, have traveled to many malls across Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana to document the experience and, in many cases, see some of these buildings for the last time before they close for good.
“I shop while I’m there, if I can,” she said. “We’ll get a snack. We’ll go sit by the fountain if they have one. You know, we’ll engage in the space. And I think that lends itself to photos that are a little more atmospheric, a little more intimate.”
In a lot of ways, Anshutz notes, the time of the mall has passed.
“I’m not advocating for these places to be saved, but I do think it’s important for photos and the folklore of a mall to still exist,” she said.
Sharing her photos on social media – especially Instagram – has sparked memories for many of her followers, who also grew up with local malls like Rolling Acres and Chapel Hill.
“There’s definitely an interest,” Anshutz said. “If I post pictures, local people are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I haven’t thought about that place in so long!’ And it just sparks all these memories and discussions that reinforce what I’m doing. I know the photos I take are important, and they are important to those who engaged in those spaces. And if I can be the person who helps them spark these memories and conversations, then that’s fantastic. I love it.”
